PerFECT 2.0: A Web-Based Platform Designed to Facilitate and Support the Diagnosis of Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in Italy.

Introduction: Timely and accurate diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is challenging, requiring specific tests including chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), and limited by access to specialist centres with a multidisciplinary team (MDT). Here we describe PerFECT 2.0, an Italian web-based platform designed to create a network between tertiary centres with an MDT (hubs) and secondary centres (spokes), aiming to facilitate the diagnosis of IPF.

Palliative treatment of life-threatening hemoptysis with silicone stent insertion in advanced lung cancer.

Massive hemoptysis is a stressful and life-threatening event that can occur in lung cancer patients. The management of this event is usually challenging, and can involve surgery, embolization, and bronchoscopy. Unfortunately, while surgery can offer a definitive solution to hemoptysis, lung cancer patients are often excluded from this approach.

Non-injection routes for allergen immunotherapy: focus on sublingual immunotherapy.

Allergen specific immunotherapy, together with drugs and allergen avoidance, is a cornerstone in the management of respiratory allergy. The non-injection or local routes were developed with the main goal of improving the safety and minimizing the risk of those side effects, which can accompany the injection route. The pure oral route and the bronchial route showed, in the clinical trials, only a marginal efficacy with not negligible side effects.

Antiallergic drugs and quality of life.

Allergic diseases represent a global health problem with a substantial impact on medical costs and socioeconomic outcomes. Furthermore, as well documented in the recent literature, these pathologies also have negative consequences on the functional, emotional and psychosocial aspects of daily life. Using validated and standardized tools, it is possible to evaluate individual outcomes.

Efficacy and safety of sublingual immunotherapy.

Objective: To review the available published data concerning the use of sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) in respiratory allergy to primarily evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of the treatment and to secondarily consider the mechanisms of action and any unresolved questions.

Data Sources: Articles in the medical literature (starting from 1986 up to November 2003) derived from searching the MEDLINE database with the keywords sublingual immunotherapy, respiratory allergy, asthma, and rhinitis. Sources included review articles, randomized controlled clinical trials, postmarketing surveillance studies, and relevant reports from meeting proceedings.

An update on the asthma-rhinitis link.

Purpose Of Review: For the present article we collected and reviewed the more relevant experimental results concerning the asthma-rhinitis link in allergic diseases, published since January 2002.

Recent Findings: During the last 2 years, particular attention has been devoted to the behaviour of the immune response in the two compartments of the airways. The recent experimental data, mainly obtained with specific nasal or bronchial allergen challenges, have confirmed that the link between the nose and the bronchi is bidirectional, and that a systemic cross-talk occurs.

Sublingual immunotherapy.

Allergen-specific immunotherapy, together with drug therapy and allergen avoidance, is a cornerstone in the management of respiratory allergy in both adults and children. Since the introduction of sublingual administration of immunotherapy (SLIT), it was regarded as the most promising approach, especially because of its optimal safety profile. After 15 years of clinical trials, the WHO officially accepted SLIT as a routine clinical option in both adults and children.