Chest
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Case Reports
A 72-Year-Old Man With Innumerable Bilateral Pulmonary Nodules After Lung Transplantation.
A 72-year-old man who underwent bilateral orthotropic lung transplantation for interstitial lung disease 6 months ago presented to the clinic with a 2-week history of cough, shortness of breath, and mid-back pain. The donor was negative for cytomegalovirus (CMV) and positive for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and the recipient was positive for both CMV and EBV. He also reported headaches but denied any fever, chills, weight loss, night sweats, chest pain, orthopnea, paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea, or leg swelling. ⋯ He never suffered from TB or had any exposure to patients with TB. His immunosuppressive regimen consisted of tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, and prednisone. The targeted tacrolimus trough level was 10 to 12 ng/mL, and the patient was generally in the therapeutic range.
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Case Reports
A 54-Year-Old Man With High-Grade Fever, Cough, Dyspnea, and Vesiculobullous Skin Eruptions.
A 54-year-old Egyptian man with a 5-day history of worsening cough, high-grade fever, and progressive dyspnea was referred to our hospital. A 3-day course of ceftriaxone provided in an outpatient setting showed no clinical improvement. Medical history was unremarkable, except for bilateral pulmonary embolism diagnosed 3 years earlier. ⋯ Five weeks before the actual presentation, he had traveled to Egypt. One of his children showed symptoms of a respiratory infection approximately 2 weeks before that. His only regular medication was rivaroxaban.
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Although evidence has documented the associations of ambient air pollution with chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) and lung function, the underlying metabolic mechanisms remain largely unclear. ⋯ Our study identifies metabolomic signatures for air pollution exposure. The metabolomic signatures showed significant associations with CRD risk, and inflammatory- and erythrocyte-related markers partly mediated the metabolomic signatures-CRD links.
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"My Mom Is a Fighter": A Qualitative Analysis of the Use of Combat Metaphors in ICU Clinician Notes.
A metaphor conceptualizes one, typically abstract, experience in terms of another, more concrete, experience with the goal of making it easier to understand. Although combat metaphors have been well described in some health contexts, they have not been well characterized in the setting of critical illness. ⋯ We provide a novel conceptual framework around the use of combat metaphors in the ICU. Further studies are needed to understand intentionality behind their use and how they impact clinician behaviors and patient and caregiver emotional responses.
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Exercise hemodynamics are recommended for early detection of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and have been suggested to be predictive of future development of PAH in high-risk populations such as BMPR2 mutation carriers. However, the optimal exercise hemodynamic screening parameter remains to be determined. Recent data suggest that pulmonary vascular distensibility (α) may serve as a useful parameter for early detection of PAH. ⋯ The results of this study indicate that before development of PAH in BMPR2 mutation carriers, α is reduced markedly and may serve as a useful parameter in the setting of early disease detection. Given the low event rate, caution is warranted in interpreting these results, highlighting the need for validation studies.