Chest
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Patients in the ICU are thought to have abnormal circadian rhythms, but quantitative data are lacking. ⋯ The findings indicate that circadian rhythms are present but altered in patients in the ICU, with the degree of circadian abnormality correlating with severity of illness.
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Paper-based diaries and self-report of symptom worsening in COPD may lead to underdetection of exacerbations. Epidemiologically, COPD exacerbations exhibit seasonal patterns peaking at year-end. We examined whether the use of a BlackBerry-based daily symptom diary would detect 95% or more of exacerbations and enable characterization of seasonal differences among them. ⋯ Smartphone-based collection of COPD symptom diaries enables near-complete identification of exacerbations at inception. Exacerbation rates in the Christmas season do not reach levels that necessitate changes in disease management.
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Prior to the 1980s, permanent feeding tube placement was limited to an open surgical procedure until Gauderer and colleagues described the safe placement of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tubes. This procedure has since expanded beyond the realm of surgeons to include gastroenterologists, thoracic surgeons, and interventional radiologists. In some academic centers, interventional pulmonologists (IPs) also perform this procedure. We describe the safety and feasibility of PEG tube placement by IPs in a critically ill population. ⋯ Bedside PEG tube placement can be performed safely and effectively by trained IPs. Because percutaneous tracheostomy is currently performed by IPs, the ability to place both PEG and tracheostomy tubes at the same time has the potential for decreased costs, anesthesia exposure, procedural times, ventilator times, and ICU days.
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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) can lead to the development of pulmonary hypertension, which is associated with an increased risk of death. In pulmonary arterial hypertension, survival is directly related to the capacity of the right ventricle to adapt to elevated pulmonary vascular load. The relative importance of right ventricular function in IPF is not well understood. Our objective was to evaluate right ventricular echocardiographic and hemodynamic predictors of mortality in a cohort of patients with IPF referred for lung transplant evaluation. ⋯ Right-sided heart size and right ventricular dysfunction measured by echocardiography and higher pulmonary vascular resistance by invasive hemodynamic assessment predict mortality in patients with IPF evaluated for lung transplantation.
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It is unknown if the radiographic fibrosis score predicts mortality in persistent hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP) and if survival is similar to that observed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) when adjusting for the extent of radiographic fibrosis. ⋯ Survival in patients with HP was superior to that of those with IPF with similar degrees of radiographic fibrosis. The combination of auscultatory crackles and radiographic reticulation identified patients with HP who had a particularly poor outcome.