• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.87 no.2
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• pp.155-164
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• 2024

Background: Exercise capacity is associated with lung function decline in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, but a discrepancy between exercise capacity and airflow limitation exists. This study aimed to explore factors contributing to this discrepancy in COPD patients. Methods: Data for this prospective study were obtained from the Korean COPD Subgroup Study. The exercise capacity and airflow limitation were assessed using the 6-minute walk distance (6-MWD; m) and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV₁). Participants were divided into four groups: FEV₁ >50%+6-MWD >350, FEV₁ >50%+6-MWD ≤350, FEV₁ ≤50%+6-MWD >350, and FEV₁ ≤50%+6-MWD ≤350 and their clinical characteristics were compared. Results: A total of 883 patients (male:female, 822:61; mean age, 68.3±7.97 years) were enrolled. Among 591 patients with FEV₁ >50%, 242 were in the 6-MWD ≤350 group, and among 292 patients with FEV₁ ≤50%, 185 were in the 6-MWD >350 group. The multiple regression analyses revealed that male sex (odds ratio [OR], 8.779; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.539 to 50.087; p=0.014), current smoking status (OR, 0.355; 95% CI, 0.178 to 0.709; p=0.003), and hemoglobin levels (OR, 1.332; 95% CI, 1.077 to 1.648; p=0.008) were significantly associated with discrepancies in exercise capacity and airflow limitation in patients with FEV₁ >50%. Meanwhile, in patients with FEV₁ ≤50%, diffusion capacity of carbon monoxide (OR, 0.945; 95% CI, 0.912 to 0.979; p=0.002) was significantly associated with discrepancies between exercise capacity and airflow limitation. Conclusion: The exercise capacity of COPD patients may be influenced by factors other than airflow limitation, so these aspects should be considered when assessing and treating patients.

• Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2009

Regulation of respiration differs significantly between wakefulness and sleep. Respiration during wakefulness is influenced by not only automatic control but also voluntary and behavioral control. Sleep is associated with definite changes in respiratory function. With the onset of sleep, voluntary control of ventilation that overrides automatic control during wakefulness becomes terminated. Also ventilatory response to various stimuli including hypoxemia and hypercapnia is decreased. With these reasons respiration during sleep becomes fragile and unstable so that marked hypoxemia can be happened in patients with lung disease especially during REM sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea may also be developed if upper airway resistance is increased in addition to these blunted ventilatory responses.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.278-281
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• 1992

Air fluid level in a large ring shadow poses a diagnostic problem. But a new development of fluid level in preexisting bullous lesion is another problem. A 60 year old man with chronic obstructive lung disease was noticed to have multiple bullae. A few years later fluid level was newly developed in some of the bullae. Fluid level persisted for several months and later completely filled the space. Surgical exploration revealed pus collection in the bullae and epidermoid carcinoma in the nearby bronchi.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.55-60
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• 2017

The pulmonary function test (PFT) is an essential data source for evaluating the effect of drugs on the lungs or the status of lung function. However, the numeric values of PFT cannot be easily used for clinical studies without labor-intensive manual efforts, because PFTs are usually recorded as image files. This study was aimed at constructing a de-identified, open-access PFT database with various clinical information. For constructing the PFT database, optical character recognition (OCR), regular expression, and the parsing technique were used to extract alphanumeric data from the PFT images in a Korean tertiary teaching hospital. This longitudinal observational database contains 413,000 measurements of PFT from 183,000 patients.

• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.64-67
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• 2009

Paratracheal air cysts are rare lesions and detected incidentally during CT scan or autopsy. Histopathologic diagnoses of paratracheal air cysts include trachocele, tracheal diverticulum and lymphoepithelial cyst. The cysts are lined by ciliated columnar epithelium and have communication with trachea. Previous reports suggested an association with obstructive lung disease because of increased expiratory pressures in these patients. Most of these cysts are asymptomatic but rarely cause productive cough, wheezing, recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis and difficult intubation. We report a case of paratracheal air cyst causing dyspnea with a review of literature.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.58-63
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• 2021

Asthma is a chronic obstructive lung disease characterized by recurrent episodes of bronchoconstriction and wheezing. Conventional asthma treatment involves the suppression of airway inflammation or improving airway flow. Rosmarinus officialis, also known as rosemary, is a Mediterranean plant that is used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Carnosol, a diterpenoid found in rosemary extracts, has been known to exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and anti-oxidant effects. The effect of carnosol on allergic responses has not been tested yet. The effect of carnosol on a murine allergic asthma model were investigated. Carnosol inhibited the degranulation of RBL-2H3 mast cells. Carnosol treatment inhibited the increase in the number of eosinophils in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) of mice treated with ovalbumin. Carnosol treatment also inhibited inflammatory responses and mucin production in histologic studies. Carnosol treatment inhibited the increases of IL-4 and IL-13 cytokines expression in both BALF and the lungs. These results suggest that carnosol may have a potential for allergic asthma therapy.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.87 no.1
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• pp.12-21
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• 2024

The management of severe asthma presents a significant challenge in asthma treatment. Over the past few decades, remarkable progress has been made in developing new treatments for severe asthma, primarily in the form of biological agents. These advances have been made possible through a deeper understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of asthma. Most biological agents focus on targeting specific inflammatory pathways known as type 2 inflammation. However, recent developments have introduced a new agent targeting upstream alarmin signaling pathways. This opens up new possibilities, and it is anticipated that additional therapeutic agents targeting various pathways will be developed in the future. Despite this recent progress, the mainstay of asthma treatment has long been inhalers. As a result, the guidelines for the appropriate use of biological agents are not yet firmly established. In this review, we aim to emphasize the current state of biological therapy for severe asthma and provide insights into its future prospects.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.78 no.3
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• pp.239-245
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• 2015

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is characterized by emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and small airway remodeling. The alveolar destruction associated with emphysema cannot be repaired by current clinical practices. Stem cell therapy has been successfully used in animal models of cigarette smoke- and elastase-induced emphysema. However, the optimal dose of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for the most effective therapy has not yet been determined. It is vital to determine the optimal dose of MSCs for clinical application in emphysema cases. Methods: In the present study, we evaluated the therapeutic effects of various doses of MSCs on elastase-induced emphysema in mice. When 3 different doses of MSCs were intravenously injected into mice treated with elastase, only $5{\times}10^4$ MSCs showed a significant effect on the emphysematous mouse lung. We also identified action mechanisms of MSCs based on apoptosis, lung regeneration, and protease/antiprotease imbalance. Results: The MSCs were not related with caspase-3/7 dependent apoptosis. But activity of matrix metalloproteinase 9 increased by emphysematous lung was decreased by intravenously injected MSCs. Vascular endothelial growth factor were also increased in lung from MSC injected mice, as compared to un-injected mice. Conclusion: This is the first study on the optimal dose of MSCs as a therapeutic candidate. This data may provide important basic data for determining dosage in clinical application of MSCs in emphysema patients.

• Herbal Formula Science
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.171-187
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• 2015

Objective This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Sagan-tang (SGT) on COPD mouse model. Methods The study was carried out by two ways (in vitro, in vivo). In vitro RAW264.7 cells (mouse macrophage) were used and analysed by flow cytometry, ELISA, Western blot. In vivo LPS and CSS challenged mice were used and its BALF had been analysed by cytospin image, FACS, ELISA, lung tissue by real-time PCR. Results In vitro, SGT maintained 80-100% rate of viablilty on 10 ~ 500 ㎍/㎖ concentration. In ELISA analysis with RAW264.7 cells, SGT significantly decreased NO over 30 ㎍/㎖. In flow cytometry, SGT 100 ㎍/㎖ dosage group displayed a tendency for decrease ROS. In Western blot analysis, SGT 100 ㎍/㎖ dosage group decreased NF-κB. In ELISA analysis, SGT significantly decreased TNF-α, IL-6 over 200 ㎍/㎖. In vivo SGT 200 ㎎/㎏ dosage group, application of SGT significantly decreased increase of neutrophils, TNF-α, IL-6 in BALF, muc5AC, TGF-β, TNF-α, expression of mRNA in lung tissue and histological lung injury. Conclusion This Study suggests usability of SGT for COPD patients by controlling lung tissue injury.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.285-290
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• 1996

Diffuse panbronchiolitis is a chronic inflammatory lung disease of unknown etiology which is characterized by chronic airflow limitation and airway inflammation, predominantly localized in the respiratory bronchioles with infiltration of inflammatory cells, and has typical clinical, radiological and pathological features. Obstructive respiratory functional impairment, occasional symptoms of wheezing, and also cough and sputum resemble the feature of emphysema, bronchial asthma, or chronic bronchitis, respectively. We experienced a case of pathologically proven advanced diffuse panbronchiolitis in a 55-year-old man with productive cough and exertional dyspnea. The chest radiography showed multiple tiny nodular densities on whole lung fields. It was confirmed by thoracoscopy-guided lung biopsy and the patient was improved after initiation of treatment with low-dose erythromycin.