Effect of Common Medications on Longitudinal Pectoralis Muscle Area in Smokers.

Background: Cigarette smoke contributes to skeletal muscle wasting. While exercise and nutritional therapies are effective in improving skeletal muscle quantity and quality, the effect of medications on longitudinal muscle loss is unclear. We investigated whether long-term use of common medications affects longitudinal skeletal muscle changes in current and former smokers.

Vasoreactivity and inhaled treprostinil response in interstitial lung disease pulmonary hypertension.

Introduction: Despite shared features with pulmonary arterial hypertension, acute vasoreactivity in pulmonary hypertension with interstitial lung disease (PH-ILD) is not well characterised, including its potential ability to predict therapeutic outcomes. We sought to determine whether acute vasoreactivity in PH-ILD to oxygen (O) and inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) predicts inhaled treprostinil (iTre) outcomes.

Materials And Methods: In this retrospective cohort analysis, we identified treatment-naive PH-ILD patients with vasoreactivity testing using O and O+iNO.

Associations between life-course FEV/FVC trajectories and respiratory symptoms up to middle age: analysis of data from two prospective cohort studies.

Background: Life-course lung function trajectories leading to airflow obstruction, as measured by impaired FEV/FVC (forced vital capacity), precede the onset of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We aimed to investigate whether individuals on impaired FEV/FVC trajectories have an increased burden of respiratory symptoms, including those who do not meet the spirometric criteria for COPD.

Methods: We analysed serial life-course data from two population-based cohort studies separately, which included respiratory symptoms and spirometry: the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study (TAHS, Australia) cohort was recruited at age 6-7 years and followed up until middle age (mean age 53 years; range 51-55); and the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA, USA) cohort was recruited at a mean age of 25 years (range 18-30) and followed up to a mean age of 55 years (range 47-64).

Profibrotic monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages are expanded in patients with persistent respiratory symptoms and radiographic abnormalities after COVID-19.

Monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages drive lung injury and fibrosis in murine models and are associated with pulmonary fibrosis in humans. Monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages have been suggested to develop a phenotype that promotes lung repair as injury resolves. We compared single-cell and cytokine profiling of the alveolar space in a cohort of 35 patients with post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 who had persistent respiratory symptoms and abnormalities on a computed tomography scan of the chest that subsequently improved or progressed.