Anabolic steroids in COPD: a review and preliminary results of a randomized trial.

Patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) commonly develop weight loss, muscle wasting, and consequently poor survival. Nutritional supplementation and anabolic steroids increase lean body mass, improve muscle strength, and survival in patients enrolled in comprehensive rehabilitation programs. Whether anabolic steroids are effective outside an intensive rehabilitation program is not known.

Practice patterns of respirologists in Canada.

The demographics and practice patterns of respirologists in Canada have not been studied. To evaluate the demographic characteristics of respirologists in practice, appraise current respirology manpower and ascertain the utilization of invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures (interventional pulmonology), a mail survey of all Canadian respirologists was conducted. The questionnaires were completed by 62% (n=355) of 573 possible participants.

Cystic angiomatosis of the bone appearing as intrathoracic lung masses.

A rare case of cystic angiomatosis of the bone (CAB) manifesting as bilateral intrathoracic masses is described. In 1996, a 47-year-old woman was referred to the chest clinic at St Boniface Hospital for evaluation of chronic cough, and her chest radiograph showed large, bilateral pleural-based intrathoracic masses. Ten years before, she had been diagnosed with CAB following bone biopsies of her hip and knee.

Physiological changes and clinical correlations of dyspnea in cancer outpatients.

The purposes of this cross-sectional study of 75 outpatients of a general oncology clinic were to assess the subjective and objective factors associated with dyspnea in cancer patients and to characterize factors that might contribute to respiratory muscle weakness demonstrated in a previous study. Patients with moderate to severe shortness of breath completed visual analogue scales (VAS) of shortness of breath (SOB) and anxiety; other data were acquired from pulmonary function tests, including maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP) and expiratory pressures; chest radiography; arterial blood gases; measurement of hemoglobin, serum potassium, phosphate, calcium, albumin, and magnesium; and ultrasound study of the diaphragm for thickness and excursion. The correlation coefficient between SOB VAS and anxiety VAS was 0.

Dyspnea in cancer patients: prevalence and associated factors.

The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of dyspnea in the general cancer population, the intensity of the symptom as perceived by the patient, and the patient characteristics associated with the presence of dyspnea. Nine hundred and twenty-three cancer outpatients completed visual analogue scales (VAS) and verbal rating scales (VRS-D) to assess the intensity of their dyspnea. Baseline data included variables that were known covariates of dyspnea.