The role of high-flow nasal therapy in bronchiectasis: a analysis.

https://bit.ly/2JFXuQc.

Long-term air humidification therapy is cost-effective for patients with moderate or severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchiectasis.

Objective: To establish the cost-effectiveness of long-term humidification therapy (LTHT) added to usual care for patients with moderate or severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchiectasis.

Methods: Resource usage in a 12-month clinical trial of LTHT was estimated from hospital records, patient diaries, and the equipment supplier. Health state utility values were derived from the St.

Azithromycin for prevention of exacerbations in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (EMBRACE): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Azithromycin is a macrolide antibiotic with anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. We tested the hypothesis that azithromycin would decrease the frequency of exacerbations, increase lung function, and improve health-related quality of life in patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis.

Methods: We undertook a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial at three centres in New Zealand.

The ghosts of departed quantities: approaches to dealing with observations below the limit of quantitation.

A common but not necessarily logical requirement in drug development is that a 'limit of quantitation' be set for chemical assays and that observations that fall below the limit should not be treated as real data but should be labelled as below the limit and set aside for special treatment. We examine five of seven approaches to analysing such data considered by Beal in 2001, concentrating in particular on two: one that treats the data as a truncated sample and another that treats them as a censored sample. In fact, using a pattern-mixture framework, one can show that the former consists of using the conditional distribution of the 'acceptable values' and the latter adds the information from the marginal mixing distribution.

Observational study of the clinical efficacy of voriconazole and its relationship to plasma concentrations in patients.

Voriconazole is approved for treating invasive fungal infections. We examined voriconazole exposure-response relationships for patients from nine published clinical trials. The relationship between the mean voriconazole plasma concentration (C(avg)) and clinical response and between the free C(avg)/MIC ratio versus the clinical response were explored using logistic regression.

The clinical utility of long-term humidification therapy in chronic airway disease.

Aim: Persistent airway inflammation with mucus retention in patients with chronic airway disorders such as COPD and bronchiectasis may lead to frequent exacerbations, reduced lung function and poor quality of life. This study investigates if long-term humidification therapy with high flow fully humidified air at 37 degrees C through nasal cannulae can improve these clinical outcomes in this group of patients.

Method: 108 patients diagnosed with COPD or bronchiectasis were randomised to daily humidification therapy or usual care for 12 months over which exacerbations were recorded.

Activity of voriconazole, itraconazole, fluconazole and amphotericin B in vitro against 1763 yeasts from 472 patients in the voriconazole phase III clinical studies.

The susceptibility of 1763 yeast isolates (from 22 species and seven genera) was tested using Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute M27-A2 microdilution methodology. Candida spp. predominated (97.

Activities of voriconazole, itraconazole and amphotericin B in vitro against 590 moulds from 323 patients in the voriconazole Phase III clinical studies.

Introduction: Fungal pathogens from the voriconazole trials were identified and tested for susceptibility at two reference laboratories.

Methods: MICs were measured using CLSI M38-A 48 h microdilution methodology.

Results: Moulds from 29 genera and 38 species were isolated from 18 countries.