Respiration; international review of thoracic diseases
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Dyspnea is prevalent and has a broad differential diagnosis. Difficulty in determining the correct etiology can delay proper treatment. Non-invasively obtained acoustic signals may offer benefit in identifying patients with dyspnea due to obstructive airway disease (OAD). ⋯ This modality was useful in identifying patients whose dyspnea was due to OAD. The ability to objectively and non-invasively measure these differences may prove clinically useful in distinguishing the operant physiology in patients presenting with acute dyspnea.
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There is more than one mechanism which contributes to the increases in upper airway resistance in obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome. Impulse oscillation provides a convenient way of noninvasive monitoring and differentiating the contributions of airway resistance. ⋯ The magnitude of change in airway resistance due to posture is bigger in OSAHS than in non-OSAHS. Zrs, R5 and R20 in supine position were associated moderately with apnea/hypopnea index.
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A significant part of the budget of our bronchoscopy unit represents repair costs for damaged bronchoscopes. ⋯ Only a small number of occurrences of bronchoscope damage in our unit are potentially preventable, but they still represent an important expense. The relatively low occurrence of preventable damage is a result of the successful bronchoscopy training program.
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Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is able to detect variations in regional lung electrical impedance associated with changes in both air and blood content and potentially capable of assessing regional ventilation-perfusion relationships. However, regional lung perfusion is difficult to determine because the impedance changes synchronous with the heart rate are of very small amplitude. ⋯ Our results indicate that redistribution of regional lung perfusion can be assessed by EIT during one-lung ventilation. The performance of EIT in detecting changes in lung perfusion in even smaller lung regions remains to be established.