Reliability of 24-h measurement of physical activity, sleep, and sedentary time in adult patients with asthma using a triaxial accelerometer.

Objective: Physical activity (PA), sleep, and sedentary time (SST) are important outcomes to monitor and to improve as part of patients' asthma management. This study aimed to assess the number of measurement days needed to reliably measure PA and SST. Secondly, the influence of external factors on the reliability of measuring PA and SST was studied.

Impact of Treatable Traits on Asthma Control and Quality of Life.

Background: Many adult patients with asthma have uncontrolled disease and impaired quality of life, despite current asthma-specific drug therapies.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of 9 traits in patients with asthma, their associations with disease control and quality of life, and referral rates to nonmedical health care professionals.

Methods: Retrospectively, data from patients with asthma were collected in 2 Dutch hospitals (Amphia Breda and RadboudUMC Nijmegen).

Differences in Pulmonary and Extra-Pulmonary Traits between Women and Men with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Background: Evidence suggests sex-related differences in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Whether these differences are reflected in the prevalence of treatable traits remains unknown. Methods: Two samples of patients referred to secondary (n = 530) or tertiary care (n = 2012) were analyzed.

"Can Do, Do Do" Quadrants and 6-Year All-Cause Mortality in Patients With COPD.

Background: Physical capacity (PC; "can do") and physical activity (PA; "do do") are prognostic indicators in COPD and can be used to subdivide patients with COPD into four exclusive subgroups (the so-called "can do, do do" quadrants). This concept may be useful to understand better the impact of PC and PA on all-cause mortality in patients with COPD.

Research Question: What is the 6-year all-cause mortality risk of the "can do, do do" quadrants of patients with COPD?

Study Design And Methods: This retrospective study used data from patients with COPD who underwent a comprehensive assessment at their first-ever outpatient consultation.

Characteristics and treatable traits of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with and without paid employment.

Introduction: Patients with COPD are vulnerable to workforce detachment. Better knowledge of features associated with paid work loss might be of help to design and select appropriate interventions.

Method: This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the presence of treatable traits in COPD patients without paid work.

Long-Term Azithromycin Maintenance Treatment in Patients with Frequent Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Macrolides are effective in reducing the number of exacerbations in COPD patients with the frequent exacerbator phenotype. Our study did not show a persistent effect of azithromycin on exacerbation frequencies after more than one year of usage.

"Can Do" Versus "Do Do" in Patients with Asthma at First Referral to a Pulmonologist.

Background: Pharmacotherapy is key in asthma control, including preventing lung function decline, in primary care. However, patients' physical functioning (eg, physical capacity [PC] [=can do] and physical activity [PA] [=do do]) correlates poorly with lung function. Therefore, a better insight into the physical function of patients with asthma is needed, using the "can do, do do" concept.

Prevalence and abundance of selected genes conferring macrolide resistance genes in COPD patients during maintenance treatment with azithromycin.

Objectives: Maintenance treatment with macrolide antibiotics has shown to be effective in reducing exacerbations in COPD patients. A major concern with prolonged treatment with antibiotics is the development of bacterial resistance. In this study we determined the effect of azithromycin on the development and acquisition of resistance to macrolides in the nasopharyngeal flora in COPD patients.

Fatigue is highly prevalent in patients with COPD and correlates poorly with the degree of airflow limitation.

Background: The objective of this study was to compare fatigue levels between subjects with and without COPD, and to investigate the relationship between fatigue, demographics, clinical features and disease severity.

Methods: A total of 1290 patients with COPD [age 65 ± 9 years, 61% male, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) 56 ± 19% predicted] and 199 subjects without COPD (age 63 ± 9 years, 51% male, FEV1 112 ± 21% predicted) were assessed for fatigue (Checklist Individual Strength-Fatigue), demographics, clinical features and disease severity.

Results: Patients with COPD had a higher mean fatigue score, and a higher proportion of severe fatigue (CIS-Fatigue score 35 ± 12 21 ± 11 points,  < 0.

Otitis media related hearing loss in Indonesian school children.

Objective: There are scant recent studies from low middle-income countries that investigate the impact of otitis media (OM) on hearing loss (HL) in school children.

Methods: This was a prospective epidemiological survey conducted by otorhinolaryngologists and audiologists in a sample of 7005 public school children (6-15 years) from 6 urban and rural sub-districts, in Indonesia. Children with otoscopic abnormalities or who failed a hearing-screening test conducted at school, underwent diagnostic audiometry and tympanometry.

Blood eosinophil count and GOLD stage predict response to maintenance azithromycin treatment in COPD patients with frequent exacerbations.

Introduction: Maintenance treatment with macrolides are useful in preventing COPD exacerbations. We investigated which characteristics of COPD patients with frequent exacerbations predicted the best response to maintenance treatment with azithromycin.

Methods: This study was part of the COLUMBUS trial, a prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 92 COPD patients with frequent exacerbations.

"Can do" versus "do do": A Novel Concept to Better Understand Physical Functioning in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Background: Physical capacity (PC) and physical activity (PA) represent associated but separate domains of physical function. It remains unknown whether this framework may support a better understanding of the impaired physical function in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The current study had two aims: (1) to determine the distribution of patients with COPD over the PC-PA quadrants, and (2) to explore whether differences exist in clinical characteristics between these quadrants.

Fatigue is Highly Prevalent in Patients with Asthma and Contributes to the Burden of Disease.

The 2018 update of the Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention does not mention fatigue-related symptoms. Nevertheless, patients with asthma frequently report tiredness, lack of energy, and daytime sleepiness. Quantitative research regarding the prevalence of fatigue in asthmatic patients is lacking.

Circulating desmosine as a biomarker of azithromycin treatment response: a analysis of the COLUMBUS randomised controlled trial.

http://ow.ly/vN6N30mhBA1.

Development of the ProPal-COPD tool to identify patients with COPD for proactive palliative care.

Background: Our objective was to develop a tool to identify patients with COPD for proactive palliative care. Since palliative care needs increase during the disease course of COPD, the prediction of mortality within 1 year, measured during hospitalizations for acute exacerbation COPD (AECOPD), was used as a proxy for the need of proactive palliative care.

Patients And Methods: Patients were recruited from three general hospitals in the Netherlands in 2014.

Prognostic assessment in COPD without lung function: the B-AE-D indices.

Several composite markers have been proposed for risk assessment in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, choice of parameters and score complexity restrict clinical applicability. Our aim was to provide and validate a simplified COPD risk index independent of lung function.

Occurrence of virus-induced COPD exacerbations during four seasons.

In this study, we investigated the occurrence of viral infections in acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during four seasons. Viral infections were detected by the use of real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction on pharyngeal swabs. During a 12-month period pharyngeal swabs were obtained in 136 exacerbations of 63 patients.

[Acute respiratory insufficiency due to COPD: invasive mechanical ventilation or not?].

The decision to move to a form of mechanical ventilation in patients with acute respiratory failure due to an acute exacerbation of COPD is influenced by expectations about survival and quality of life after discharge from the ICU. Physicians tend to be too pessimistic about the survival outcome of an ICU stay with invasive mechanical ventilation. The forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) is not an adequate prognostic parameter.

Otitis media in indonesian urban and rural school children.

Background: Although the epidemiology of otitis media is well-known in industrialized countries, the extent of otitis media in developing Asian countries, especially in south East Asia is not well studied.

Methods: To define the burden of otitis media and its sequelae in children 6-15 years of age, we enrolled elementary and junior high school children in 6 areas in rural and urban Indonesia. Randomly selected schools and classrooms were selected.

Azithromycin maintenance treatment in patients with frequent exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COLUMBUS): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Macrolide resistance is an increasing problem; there is therefore debate about when to implement maintenance treatment with macrolides in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We aimed to investigate whether patients with COPD who had received treatment for three or more exacerbations in the previous year would have a decrease in exacerbation rate when maintenance treatment with azithromycin was added to standard care.

Methods: We did a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-centre trial in The Netherlands between May 19, 2010, and June 18, 2013.

The use of iodine seed (I-125) as a marker for the localisation of lung nodules in minimal invasive pulmonary surgery.

Aim: Video assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) is an important tool in the field of thoracic pathology both for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. The standard technique for localisation of non-visible or non-palpable lung lesions is the use of image guided insertion of a guide-wire. However, this method is associated with complications such as pneumothorax, bleeding and wire-dislocation.

Influence of macrolide maintenance therapy and bacterial colonisation on exacerbation frequency and progression of COPD (COLUMBUS): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by progressive development of airflow limitation that is poorly reversible. Because of a poor understanding of COPD pathogenesis, treatment is mostly symptomatic and new therapeutic strategies are limited. There is a direct relationship between the severity of the disease and the intensity of the inflammatory response.