Publications by authors named "Francisco Javier Gonzalez Barcala"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how asthma affects naïve/memory lymphocyte proportions through CD26 levels, aiming to link asthma phenotype/severity with variations in CD26 among various lymphocyte populations.* -
  • Methods included flow cytometry analysis of blood samples from healthy and asthma patients to measure CD26 levels and characterize CD4CD26 T cell subsets, leading to the identification of four distinct inflammatory profiles.* -
  • Results showed that neutrophilic asthma had lower CD4CD26 cells correlated with inflammation, while eosinophilic asthma had expanded CD26 subsets, particularly in atopic patients, indicating a role in chronic inflammation associated with allergic asthma.*
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Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is common in women with chronic cough but may be overlooked. To determine the frequency of underdiagnosis of cough-related SUI and its impact on women's general health status and quality of life (QoL). Data were analyzed for 147 women with refractory/unexplained chronic cough.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates how the severity of chronic cough affects the quality of life (QoL) and other outcomes for Spanish patients with refractory chronic cough (RCC) or unexplained chronic cough (UCC).
  • Patients self-reported cough severity using various tools, and their results were categorized into three groups based on cough severity scores, revealing a direct link between higher severity and worse QoL.
  • The findings suggest that patients with more severe coughs reported greater negative impacts on their daily lives, indicating they may need more targeted treatment interventions.
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Chronic respiratory diseases (CRD) are responsible for more than four million deaths worldwide and have become especially prevalent in developed countries. Although the current therapies help manage daily symptoms and improve patients' quality of life, there is a major need to prevent exacerbations triggered mainly by respiratory infections. Therefore, CRD patients are a prime target for vaccination against infectious agents.

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  • The study focused on evaluating the responses of severe asthma patients after long-term treatment (over 6 months) with biologics like anti-IgE and anti-IL-5, revealing that about 91% of participants were either super-responders or responders.
  • Out of 429 patients, 27% achieved clinical remission, but there was significant variation in results depending on the criteria used to measure success.
  • Key predictors for non-response included a higher BMI, previous ICU admissions, and a high number of serious asthma events, while factors like good lung function scores were linked to achieving clinical remission.
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Introduction: COPD causes high morbidity and mortality and high health costs. Thus, identifying and analyzing the distinctive and treatable traits seems useful to optimize the management of AEPOC patients. While various biomarkers have been researched, no solid data for systematic use have been made available.

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Introduction And Objectives: The use of monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based therapies is becoming the new standard of care for severe uncontrolled asthma (SUA). Even though patients may qualify for one or more of these targeted treatments, based on different clinical criteria, a global vision of mAb prescription management in a large sample of hospitals is not well characterised in Spain.The objective was to give a global vision of mAb prescription management in a large sample of hospitals in Spain.

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Background: Chronic cough (cough lasting for ≥8 weeks) can lead to significant impairment in quality of life (QoL). Using patient-reported outcomes, this cohort study assessed the perceived impact of chronic cough on QoL and everyday life in patients from outpatient hospital clinics with refractory chronic cough (RCC) or unexplained chronic cough (UCC).

Methods: This was a multicentre, non-interventional survey study.

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The use of devices for measuring the exhaled fraction of nitric oxide has proven to be very useful, especially in the diagnosis of asthma, prediction of response to corticosteroids, risk of exacerbations or compliance with treatment, among others, and their use is recommended by important clinical practice guidelines. In recent years we have witnessed a proliferation of options on the market with different characteristics. To help in choosing a device that suits the needs of the professionals involved in the management of asthma, this review presents some of the important characteristics of the most common devices.

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Introduction: Asthma is a disease with high prevalence, which affects all age groups and generates high health and social care costs. Studies carried out in a number of populations show great variability in its prevalence, even in geographically close populations, with data suggesting a relevant influence of socio-economic factors. At present, we do not have reliable data on the prevalence of this disease in the adult population of Spain.

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Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease and a major public health problem. Although the causal relationship between air pollution and asthma remains controversial, a large number of studies have provided increasingly consistent evidence of the involvement of air pollutants in asthma onset and exacerbations. We conducted a keyword search-based literature review using PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases for studies with titles or abstracts containing predefined terms.

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Severe asthma is a heterogeneous syndrome with several clinical variants and often represents a complex disease requiring a specialized and multidisciplinary approach, as well as the use of multiple drugs. The prevalence of severe asthma varies from one country to another, and it is estimated that 50% of these patients present a poor control of their disease. For the best management of the patient, it is necessary a correct diagnosis, an adequate follow-up and undoubtedly to offer the best available treatment, including biologic treatments with monoclonal antibodies.

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Evidence of the effect of statins on patients with coronavirus disease (2019) COVID-19 is inconsistent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between chronic use of statins-both overall and by active ingredient-and severe outcomes of COVID-19 (risk of hospitalization and mortality), progression to severe outcomes, and susceptibility to the virus. We conducted a population-based case-control study with data from electronic records to assess the risk of (1) hospitalization: cases were patients admitted due to COVID-19 and controls were subjects without COVID-19; (2) mortality: cases were hospitalized patients who died due to COVID-19 and controls were subjects without COVID-19; (3) progression: cases were hospitalized COVID-19 subjects and controls were nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients; and (4) susceptibility: cases were patients with COVID-19 (both hospitalized and nonhospitalized) and controls were subjects without COVID-19.

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Introduction: Data on the clinical efficacy and remodeling of omalizumab therapy in patients on oral corticosteroids (OC) are limited.

Objective: The purpose of the study is to show that in patients with corticosteroid-dependent asthma, omalizumab is a corticosteroid-sparing therapy able to inhibit airway remodeling and to reduce disease burden (lung function impairment, exacerbations).

Methods: This study is a randomised open-label study evaluating the addition of omalizumab to the standard of care in patients with severe asthma receiving oral corticosteroids.

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Background: Exposure to certain agents in the workplace can trigger occupational asthma or work-exacerbated asthma, both of which come under the heading of work-related asthma (WRA). Understanding the burden that WRA represents can help in the management of these patients.

Objective: To assess the influence of occupation on asthma in real life and analyze the characteristics of patients with WRA included in an asthma cohort.

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Background: Currently, there are no universally accepted criteria to measure the response to biologics available as treatment for severe asthma. This survey aims to establish consensus criteria to use for the evaluation of response to biologics after 4 months of treatment.

Method: Using Delphi methodology, a questionnaire including 10 items was validated by 13 international experts in asthma.

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Objective: To analyze the relationship between asthma and bronchiectasis, as well as the necessary conditions that this connection must meet for this group of patients to be considered a special phenotype.

Data Sources: We performed a PubMed search using the MeSH terms "asthma" and "bronchiectasis." The literature research was limited to clinical trials, meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and systematic reviews, involving adult patients, published until November 30th, 2022.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to analyze how dementia prevalence affects hospital outcomes for patients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AE-COPD) in Spain from 2011 to 2020, focusing on sex differences and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Researchers used a nationwide discharge database, revealing that 4.45% of the 658,429 AE-COPD hospitalizations involved patients with some type of dementia, with trends showing an increase in dementia cases from 2016 to 2020.
  • In-hospital mortality rates remained stable until 2020, when they rose significantly, likely due to COVID-19; the study also noted that women had lower mortality risks compared
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  • The study investigates the clinical characteristics and outcomes of lung transplantation in COPD patients in Spain from 2016 to 2020, focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these metrics.
  • A total of 704 lung transplants were analyzed, revealing an annual increase until 2019, followed by an 18% decline in 2020; common complications included transplant rejection and infection, affecting nearly half of the patients.
  • The research found that while the overall number of transplantations decreased in 2020, there were no significant changes in median hospital stay or in-hospital mortality rates compared to previous years.
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Introduction: The definition of asthma phenotypes has not been fully established, neither there are cluster studies showing homogeneous results to solidly establish clear phenotypes. The purpose of this study was to develop a classification algorithm based on unsupervised cluster analysis, identifying clusters that represent clinically relevant asthma phenotypes that may share asthma-related outcomes.

Methods: We performed a multicentre prospective cohort study, including adult patients with asthma (N=512) from the MEGA study (Mechanisms underlying the Genesis and evolution of Asthma).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to compare the prevalence and clinical presentation of asthma in rural and urban populations, focusing on individuals aged 18 and over.
  • Results showed a prevalence of asthma at 15% in rural areas and 11% in urban areas, suggesting that the overall prevalence does not significantly differ between these settings.
  • However, the urban asthmatic population exhibited more cases of allergic rhinitis and higher coughing symptoms, indicating different clinical manifestations of the disease influenced by environmental factors.
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