Malignant Pleural Effusions: Updates in Diagnosis and Management.

Malignant pleural effusions remain a significant clinical problem resulting in greater than 125,000 hospitalizations per year and leading to over 5 billion dollars in healthcare utilization costs. Not only are health care expenditures related to malignant pleural effusion significant, but malignant pleural effusions also often result in significant patient discomfort and distress, largely at the end of life. Advances in management over the past several years have provided patients with greater autonomy as they are able to provide self-aid at home either alone or with family assistance.

The immune response and its therapeutic modulation in bronchiectasis.

Bronchiectasis (BC) is a chronic pulmonary disease with tremendous morbidity and significant mortality. As pathogen infection has been advocated as a triggering insult in the development of BC, a central role for the immune response in this process seems obvious. Inflammatory cells are present in both the airways as well as the lung parenchyma, and multiple mediators of immune cells including proteases and cytokines or their humoral products are increased locally or in the periphery.