The various forms of interstitial lung disease (ILD) can be impossible to tell apart without a biopsy. There’s too much overlap between them in their appearance on imaging (high-resolution chest CT), and in clinical features. A surgical lung biopsy is the standard in such cases. For many patients and physicians, though, the risk and discomfort [… read more]
For too long, treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer was brutally simple: platinum chemotherapy and a trip to the attorney to get one’s affairs in order. Fortunately for patients, it’s not quite so straightforward anymore. Effective targeted molecular therapies for non-small cell lung cancer are now available, often taken orally with fewer side effects than traditional cytotoxic [… read more]
“Bridging” anticoagulation — usually, interrupting chronic warfarin therapy, starting injectable or intravenous heparin, stopping just before an invasive procedure, restarting heparin and warfarin after, then stopping heparin — is a cumbersome and common practice in medicine. A new paper in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that for most patients taking anticoagulation after deep venous thrombosis (DVT) [… read more]
Thoracentesis for pleural effusion — that is, inserting a long needle between someone’s ribs to drain a fluid collection from the chest — has always come with a scary menu of potential risks, including pneumothorax, hemothorax and pulmonary edema. A new study reports a low complication rate from thousands of thoracenteses. But debate will remain whether the safety results — achieved [… read more]
image: Olympus Most lung cancers spread to the lymph nodes in the chest first. Unless distant spread to other organs (metastasis) is obvious, biopsy of any suspicious intrathoracic lymph nodes is necessary to stage and prognose lung cancer. The presence or absence of cancerous lymph nodes, and their location in relation to the lung cancer, determine [… read more]
Using BAL Cellular Analysis in Interstitial Lung Disease The role of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in diagnosing and managing patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) has always been uncertain and controversial. BAL findings are usually nonspecific, suggesting rather than proving the existence of any particular noninfectious condition (including interstitial lung disease). That said, in patients with [… read more]
On-site, intra-procedure cytopathologic examination of aspirated tissue during transbronchial needle aspiration (either by EBUS or “blind” approach) is probably helpful during bronchoscopy. Why wouldn’t it be? You’ve got a trained professional there to tell you when you’ve made the diagnosis and can stop taking biopsies. Diagnostic yield should go up, complications down. Randomized trials have [… read more]
Diagnosing lung cancer without a biopsy may seem like science fiction, but breath testing to identify lung cancer has made steady gains in accuracy in recent years. A study abstract presented by Peter Mazzone et al at Chest 2013 in Chicago shows just how far one of the new technologies — volatile organic compound analysis [… read more]
EUS with EBUS Superior at Diagnosing Sarcoidosis Sarcoidosis affects tens of thousands of people in the U.S., but making the diagnosis can be tricky. A biopsy is almost always required, and since >90% of patients have involvement of the lungs and/or lymph nodes in the chest, bronchoscopy has been the standard procedure for obtaining tissue. [… read more]
image: CUHK Early Tracheostomy Does Not Help in Large “TracMan” Trial More than 100,000 tracheostomies are performed worldwide each year for people requiring prolonged periods of mechanical ventilation. It’s generally agreed that to avoid damaging the trachea and throat, a tracheostomy should be placed within 3 weeks of mechanical ventilation. But prior to 3 weeks, [… read more]
Managing Anticoagulation Therapy For Surgery and Procedures See also: How to manage anticoagulation perioperatively (ACCP Guidelines) NOTE: Please read the Terms of Use before proceeding. If you are a patient, stop reading now; this site is for health care professionals only. If you are a health care professional, do not rely on this information as [… read more]
image: Olympus EBUS Complication Rates <1% at Experienced Centers Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) — an ultrasound probe on the tip of a bronchoscope — allows real-time viewing of tissues beyond the bronchial wall. It enables more accurate and safer needle biopsies of lymph nodes and masses that abut the bronchial wall. EBUS is an exciting new [… 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]
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