By Chad Everett Miller, MD
An uncommon but lethal cause of right heart failure While not as common as left heart failure, right heart failure, too, is a major contributor to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), while a relatively uncommon disease, carries a poor prognosis even today as patients succumb to right heart failure. In recent decades, the ... Continue Reading
By Venk Lakshminarayanan, MD, Ph.D. Traditional bronchoscopy is a procedure allowing direct visualization of the tracheobronchial trees of the airway. Historically, the main types of bronchoscopy are rigid and flexible. Flexible bronchoscopy allows for visualization of the lumen, mucosa of the trachea, proximal airways and segmental airways to the third generation of segmental ... Continue Reading
By Robert J. Albin, MD, FCCP, FAASM Due to the ubiquitous availability of CT scanners, coupled with the ever-increasing propensity by physicians across all specialties to order advanced imaging studies, the number of incidentally detected pulmonary nodules has been soaring. Over a recent 7-year stretch, one large integrated health sys-tem reported a 53 percent increase in ... Continue Reading
By Micah Fisher, MD The area of pulmonary hypertension has seen an ex-plosion in interest and therapeutic options over the past 25 years. The first World Health Organization (WHO) international symposium was held in 1973, leading to a standardized definition, a classification system and calls for further investigation. That first classification system, dividing patients ... Continue Reading
By Helen K. Kelley Pulmonology, an internal medicine subspecialty, is concerned with diseases of the lungs and bronchial tubes and often involves evaluation of the upper respiratory tract (nose, pharynx and throat) as well as the heart. Interventional pulmonology is a relatively new field in pulmonary medicine that uses endoscopy and other tools to diagnose and treat ... Continue Reading
November 2008 Emory University researchers are participating in a nationwide study to explore an investigational treatment for advanced widespread emphysema. The EASE (Exhale Airway Stents for Emphysema) Trial focuses on airway bypass, a minimally invasive procedure designed to reduce excessive lung inflation and shortness of breath -- typical complications of emphysema - ... Continue Reading
