[Asthma in the elderly].

Introduction: Asthma in the elderly is a growing clinical problem. It affects 6 to 7% of this age-group, but making the distinction between asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is more difficult as patients get older.

State Of The Art: This difficulty is due to a number of factors: the confounding role of smoking, and also the physiological effects of ageing on the airways which renders airway obstruction more resistant to bronchodilation.

[Asthma in the elderly].

Introduction: Asthma in the elderly is a growing clinical problem. It affects 6 to 7% of this age-group, but making the distinction between asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is more difficult as patients get older.

State Of The Art: This difficulty is due to a number of factors: the confounding role of smoking, and also the physiological effects of ageing on the airways which renders airway obstruction more resistant to bronchodilation.

Risk of pulmonary embolism after a negative spiral CT angiogram in patients with pulmonary disease: 1-year clinical follow-up study.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of pulmonary disease on diagnostic utility of spiral computed tomographic (CT) angiography in clinical practice.

Materials And Methods: Three hundred thirty-four patients, including 215 patients with pulmonary disease (group 1) and 119 patients with no history of respiratory disorder (group 2), were referred for thin-collimation CT angiography of the pulmonary circulation as the first-line diagnostic test. Patients with negative angiograms who had not received anticoagulation therapy and who could be clinically followed up at 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year were considered in the final study groups (n = 185); 135 patients had lung disease (group 3), and 50 patients had no history of a respiratory disorder (group 4).

[Recurrent edema of the face and neck in a chronically hemodialyzed patient].

We report the case of a patient undergoing long-term hemodialysis admitted to hospital for diagnosis of recurrent face and neck edema influenced by dialysis sessions with paroxysmal dyspnea. We considered the possible role of allergy to ethylene oxide and to formaldehyde without diagnostic confirmation. Dialyzer complement activation was suspected but changing the dialyzer did not improve the symptoms.

[Sjögren's syndrome and necrotizing sarcoid-like granulomatosis].

We report the first description of a Sjögren's syndrome associated with nectrotizing sarcoid-like granulmatosis. A 62-year old woman was admitted for diagnostic exploration of fatigue, weight loss, and fever at 38 degrees C which had progressed for more than 3 months. Chest X-ray showed several pulmonary opacities.

Quality of life in nasal polyposis.

Background: Nasal polyposis (NP) is a frequent inflammatory chronic disease of the upper respiratory tract, which may impair quality of life (QOL). The NP impact, which is frequently associated with lower respiratory disorders, has never before been studied.

Objective: We initiated this prospective study to establish internal validity and reliability of the generic SF-36 questionnaire in NP and to determine to what level daily functioning becomes impaired as a result of NP.