Mortality due to cancer treatment delay: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To quantify the association of cancer treatment delay and mortality for each four week increase in delay to inform cancer treatment pathways.

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

Data Sources: Published studies in Medline from 1 January 2000 to 10 April 2020.

Noninvasive quantification of alveolar morphometry in elderly never- and ex-smokers.

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a way to generate in vivo lung images with contrast sensitive to the molecular displacement of inhaled gas at subcellular length scales. Here, we aimed to evaluate hyperpolarized (3)He MRI estimates of the alveolar dimensions in 38 healthy elderly never-smokers (73 ± 6 years, 15 males) and 21 elderly ex-smokers (70 ± 10 years, 14 males) with (n = 8, 77 ± 6 years) and without emphysema (n = 13, 65 ± 10 years). The ex-smoker and never-smoker subgroups were significantly different for FEV1/FVC (P = 0.

Oscillatory Positive Expiratory Pressure in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Evidence-based guidance for the use of airway clearance techniques (ACT) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is lacking in-part because well-established measurements of pulmonary function such as the forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1) are relatively insensitive to ACT. The objective of this crossover study was to evaluate daily use of an oscillatory positive expiratory pressure (oPEP) device for 21-28 days in COPD patients who were self-identified as sputum-producers or non-sputum-producers. COPD volunteers provided written informed consent to daily oPEP use in a randomized crossover fashion.

Differences in hyperpolarized (3) He ventilation imaging after 4 years in adults with cystic fibrosis.

Purpose: To evaluate cystic fibrosis (CF) subjects over 4 years using (3) He magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), pulmonary function tests, and track hospitalization and physician visits.

Materials And Methods: Five CF adults provided written informed consent to an approved protocol and underwent MRI, spirometry, and plethysmography at baseline, 7 days, and 4 ± 1 years later. (3) He MRI ventilation defect percent (VDP) was generated for all subjects and timepoints.

Pulmonary ventilation defects in older never-smokers.

Hyperpolarized (3)He MRI previously revealed spatially persistent ventilation defects in healthy, older compared with healthy, younger never-smokers. To understand better the physiological consequences and potential relevance of (3)He MRI ventilation defects, we evaluated (3)He-MRI ventilation-defect percent (VDP) and the effect of deep inspiration (DI) and salbutamol on VDP in older never-smokers. To identify the potential determinants of ventilation defects in these subjects, we evaluated dyspnea, pulmonary function, and cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) measurements, as well as occupational and second-hand smoke exposure.