The relationship of gastroesophageal reflux disease and asthma control.

Purpose: To study whether ACT responses are confounded by gastro-esophageal status (GERD), and if this is in concordance with the variation in Forced Expiratory Volume in 1 second (FEV1%) and Fractional Excretion of Nitric Oxide (FeNO).

Materials And Methods: This is a prospective cohort study ( = 307). Patients were surveyed for demographics data, and underwent ACT scoring, FEV1% and FeNO testing.

The effect of the socioeconomic status on the measurement of asthma control.

The Asthma Control Test (ACT) is a commonly used scoring system for evaluation of asthma control in the pediatric and adult populations. Asthma control has been deemed poor in those economically disadvantaged. To study whether the ACT is affected by socioeconomic status (SES) as evaluated by the percentage of the federal poverty level and the education level.

Left ventricular perforation from a dislodged needle migrating via a pulmonary artery branch in an intravenous drug user.

Embolised needles causing injury to the right heart and cardiac tamponade has been reported before in intravenous drug users, but to our knowledge, this is the first reported case of a needle migrating via the pulmonary arterial system to cause perforation of the ventricle. Appropriate utilisation of imaging modalities such as plain X-ray and point-of-care focused cardiac ultrasound can be vital and life-saving in the emergency setting, and the value of gated multidetector CT as a powerful tool for imaging moving structures is highlighted.