Using BAL Cellular Analysis in Interstitial Lung Disease: 2012 ATS Guideline The role of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in diagnosing and managing patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) has always been uncertain and controversial. An American Thoracic Society (ATS) expert panel including Keith Meyer, Ganesh Raghu, Brent Wood et al reviewed 35 years of published literature and [... read more]
(image: Wikipedia) With increasing use of chest CT, incidental mediastinal lymphadenopathy seems to be frequently discovered and subsequently biopsied using EBUS. The “if it’s enlarged, stick a needle in it” mantra is challenged by a paper by Stigt et al. 83 people (age ~59) with at least one incidentally discovered mediastinal lymph node > 1 [... read more]
The American Lung Association has become the largest advisory body to recommend lung cancer screening for high-risk people, advising nearly all people aged 55-74 with a 30+ pack-year smoking history (the entry criteria for the National Lung Screening Trial, or NLST) to undergo low-dose CT scanning to detect early lung cancer. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network, [... read more]
(image: Wikipedia) In the TIME2 randomized trial published in the June 13 2012 JAMA, indwelling pleural catheters and talc pleurodesis were equivalent at reducing dyspnea over the 6 weeks following the procedure among 106 patients with malignant pleural effusions. Most patients receiving pleural catheters required no hospital stays, and overall had fewer repeat procedures than those [... read more]
New Trachea Grown, Transplanted In Two Men Paolo Macchiarini, Philipp Jungebluth et al report in Lancet their successful bioprosthetic trachea creation and transplantation in a 36-year old man in Sweden after a distal tracheal resection for recurrent primary tracheal cancer. The same group transplanted a bioengineered trachea into a 30-year old Baltimore man, who is [... read more]
(image: PneumRx) ATLANTA — In a small, open-label pilot study, bronchoscopically-placed metal coils that retract emphysematous lung, creating lung volume reduction without surgery, produced functional and airflow improvements in a majority of patients with severe COPD, the lead researcher reported at CHEST 2012. Investigators randomized 47 patients with severe emphysema type COPD to undergo either [... read more]
(image: Wikipedia) As one after another specialty society endorses routine lung cancer screening with chest CT scans, we all know a Nodule Storm is coming to a pulmonology clinic near you. Thankfully, smart people are asking how we can systematically and successfully handle this soon-to-be-common outpatient clinical problem. Most of these many thousands of nodules [... read more]
Advances in Diagnosis and Treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) This review document is periodically updated and reposted as new information is published. Please comment below with your suggestions for inclusion in upcoming updates of this review. (More PulmCCM topic reviews) The diagnosis and treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is rapidly evolving, [... read more]
(image: Wikipedia) There are an estimated 200,000 pleural effusions due to malignancy each year in the U.S. alone, and these represent an important cause of suffering and limitation in functional ability for people living with advanced cancer. Pleurodesis (using talc or other sclerosants) and placement of indwelling pleural catheters are both accepted, reasonable approaches to the [... read more]
(image: flickrCC) Endobronchial ultrasound with transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA), when performed by skilled physicians, reduces the need for mediastinoscopy and unnecessary thoracotomies with their associated morbidity, and is poised to permanently alter the landscape of lung cancer diagnosis and staging. Prior to 2008, Medicare seemed to recognize the potential value of EBUS by paying hospitals [... read more]
It’s time to revise the traditional approach to the management of pulmonary nodules, abandon the concept of a “solitary pulmonary nodule,” and update our cognitive strategy incorporating the changes in practice and decision-making brought by the frequency of chest CT scanning and its vastly increased sensitivity over chest films of the old era. So say David Ost and Michael Gould, in their concise [... read more]
The National Lung Screening Trial (NSLT) showed a 20% reduction in death from lung cancer, but with a number needed to screen of 320 to prevent one death, a false-positive rate of 96% and each abnormal scan generating costs of ~$45,000, the risk / benefit / cost accounts are far from settled. Few insurers (e.g. [... read more]
I knew I smelled something fishy about this paper when I read and commented on it last year. Now, Chest reports they’re giving this study a burial at sea, after the authors could not produce actual data supporting the trial. To help set the record straight: Chest published a retrospective study in March 2011, “Chest Tube [... read more]
Traditional bronchoscopy with transbronchial biopsy (TBBx) has only a 34% sensitivity at diagnosing peripheral pulmonary nodules < 2 cm in size. Transthoracic needle aspiration (TTNA)’s superior sensitivity of 90% for diagnosing peripheral lesions makes it the standard of care for peripheral lesions, but TTNA carries a considerable risk for pneumothorax. A huge proportion of patients experience [... read more]
Richard Light and friends established that parapneumonic effusions (PPE) associated with community-acquired pneumonia very rarely progress if the effusion is freely layering and less than 1 cm in height on a lateral decubitus chest film. But who orders those anymore? Chest CT use has risen 20-fold since Light’s seminal 1980 paper. Often the CT has [... read more]
Intra-abdominal hypertension (defined as a sustained urinary bladder pressure > 12 mm Hg) may be an under-recognized problem in the ICU, especially in patients after abdominal surgery or who have gone massive volume resuscitation with blood and/or fluids (think hemorrhage, burns and sepsis). When high abdominal pressures (> 20 mm Hg sustained) cause organ failure and/or [... read more]
[poll id="3"] A 2005 meta-analysis of 5 studies (n=406) concluded that early tracheostomy reduced need for mechanical ventilation and ICU days. But then a 2006 randomized trial in trauma patients found no benefit to early trach, and an underpowered 2008 RCT also found no benefit. In a new meta-analysis and systematic review of 7 trials (n=1,044), Fei [... read more]
Ultrasound is the future. It’s even better than that: it’s the present. So say proponents Seth Koenig, Mangala Narasimhan and pioneer & innovator Paul Mayo in this month’s CHEST review. They endorse a “paradigm shift” meaning, in effect, you get professionally trained on this highly versatile, effective, and immediate-results-providing modality and integrate it into your routine [... read more]
More than 65,000 people develop empyema each year, and 25% of them are in the hospital a month or longer. Past randomized trials and a meta-analysis showed streptokinase didn’t help, but case series suggested tissue plasminogen activator might. Rahman et al randomized 210 people to a 2 x 2 table: double-placebo, DNAse and t-PA, DNAse [... read more]
As Sancho et al point out here, there is a paucity of information available about tracheotomy in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — when it’s best to perform the life-prolonging surgery, as well as what patients, families, and physicians can expect afterward. They followed 116 patients with ALS; 76 were recommended to receive tracheotomy when they could [... read more]