[Early diagnosis of lung cancer: impact of autofluorescence bronchoscopy].

Introduction: Less than 15% of all patients survive five years after a diagnosis of lung cancer. This poor prognosis is attributed to a lack of early detection. Among the methods of early diagnosis of bronchial cancer, autofluorescence bronchoscopy allows for the early identification of preinvasive bronchial lesions.

Peripheral arterial disease: an underestimated aetiology of exercise intolerance in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.

Objective: To assess the prevalence of peripheral arterial disease and its implications for exercise limitation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.

Method: One hundred and fifty-one moderate-to-severe COPD patients (forced expiratory volume in 1 s: 37+/-6 SD% predicted) and 73 healthy age-matched control individuals (divided into 31 smokers and 42 nonsmokers) participated in this study. All COPD patients were either exsmokers or current smokers and their tobacco-smoking history was similar to that of healthy smokers.

Cisplatin, ifosfamide, and vinorelbine combination chemotherapy in stage III-IV non-small-cell lung cancer: a phase II study.

The authors evaluate the combination of three drugs, vinorelbine, ifosfamide, and cisplatin, which have been shown to produce good response rates and a significant gain in survival when any two of them are given together. Seventy-seven untreated patients with inoperable stage III-IV non-small-cell lung cancer from three centers were included. The combination consisted of cisplatin 30 mg/m2 daily, ifosfamide 1,500 mg/m2 daily, mesna 1,500 mg/m2 daily on days 1-3, and vinorelbine 25 mg/m2 daily on days 1 and 8.