October 2010

AARC Congress Coming Up Soon; Program Online Now
The AARC will be heading to Las Vegas, NV this Dec. 6–9, and if the Advance Program is any indication, it should be a great meeting for Diagnostics RTs. Topics range from the mobile spirometry unit, to the upper airway and cardiopulmonary exercise testing; and pulmonary function testing year in review. This year’s premier lectures, the Egan and Kittredge, focus squarely on issues we all care most about as well: The Mechanical Ventilator—Past, Present, and Future, and COPD Heterogeneity: What This Will Mean in Practice. Also, don’t miss out on your section’s annual membership business meeting held Wednesday, Dec. 8 at 11:05 am. It’s your opportunity to hear what’s new in your section and voice your opinion about what you’d like to see done in 2011. So check out the program, and then register by Oct. 31 for earlybird savings. 

Fall Bulletin Features Two Great Articles
Our Fall Bulletin is online now, with two articles you’ll want to read. The first compares pulmonary diagnostics here and in the United Kingdom. The second addresses pleural fluid pH vs. glucose analysis. Editor Rick Weaver challenges everyone to contribute articles to the Bulletin next year in his Notes column as well. 

Go to the SECTION WEBSITE and click on “Bulletins” to read the issue.

Insulin Resistance May Worsen Lung Function
A new study out of Spain suggests insulin resistance is linked to pulmonary function impairment in morbidly obese women. The investigators came to that conclusion after conducting pulmonary function tests in 75 morbidly obese non-diabetic women. Fifty of the women were diagnosed with insulin resistance and the other 25 were not. Patients with insulin resistance had lower FEV1s and lower maximum midexpiratory flow when compared to those without insulin resistance. “Our results strongly suggest that the metabolic pathways related to insulin resistance are crucial in initiating lung abnormalities previously described in type 2 diabetic patients,” write the authors. The study appeared in the Sept. 29 Epub edition of Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews. READ ABSTRACT

Rint vs. Raw
French researchers compared the interrupter resistance (Rint) as measured by the opening interrupter technique (Rint1) and the linear back-extrapolation method (Rint2) with airway resistance measured by plethysmography (Raw) in 32 asthmatic children and 11 children with cystic fibrosis who were categorized into obstructive (Obs) and non-obstructive (NObs) groups. Their findings include:

  • Raw was lower than Rint1 and Rint2.
  • Raw, but neither Rint1 nor Rint2, was significantly higher in the Obs group than in the NObs group.
  • The differences in Rint1-Raw and Rint2-Raw were correlated with FEV1/VC, and Rint1-Raw was correlated with height.
  • After bronchodilator, significant changes in Rint1 and Raw were observed in 5/9 and 7/9 children, respectively.

The study appears in this month’s Respirology. READ ABSTRACT

African Ancestry Not Linked to ICS Responsiveness
African ancestry may not play a role in inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) responsiveness among African-Americans with asthma, conclude Michigan researchers publishing in the Sept. 22 Epub edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Following pulmonary function testing, they treated 147 patients with a mean proportion of African ancestry of 78.4% with six weeks of inhaled beclomethasone dipropionate. The tests were repeated at the end of the six week period. The average improvement in FEV1 was 11.6%. The only factor consistently associated with ICS responsiveness was the degree of baseline bronchodilator reversibility. READ ABSTRACT

Don’t Mistake Responsiveness for Reversibility
Significant bronchodilator responsiveness is not the same as reversibility of obstruction, according to University of Kentucky researchers who studied 440 people taking part in the Burden of Lung Disease project in Southeastern Kentucky. In an examination of the relation between changes in “obstruction” status (based on the FEV1/FVC of 0.7) and the presence of “significant bronchodilator responsiveness” (based on ≥ 12% improvement in the FEV1 or the FVC), they noted:

  • 32/440 subjects (7.3%) changed from obstructed to unobstructed (full-reversibility).
  • 19/440 (4.3%) changed from unobstructed to obstructed (“inverse”-reversibility).
  • 389/440 (88.4%) had either no-change or partial-reversibility.
  • 65/440 (14.8%) had bronchodilator responsiveness.
  • Among those with full-reversibility, only 9/32 (28.1%) had bronchodilator responsiveness, whereas among subjects with “inverse”-reversibility, 10/19 (52.6%) had bronchodilator responsiveness.
  • Among all subjects with bronchodilator responsiveness, only 19/65 (29.2%) changed categories.

The study appears in this month’s issue of COPD. READ ABSTRACT


 

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