View clinical trials related to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
Filter by:Default options represent the events or conditions that are set into place if no alternatives are actively chosen. The setting of default options has well-established effects on a broad range of human decisions, but its influence on patients' preferences for end-of-life care is only beginning to be understood. This is a 3-armed randomized clinical trial in Veterans at high risk for critical illness, assessing the impact of Advance Directive (AD) forms framed with different default options. The central goals are to assess how default options in ADs influence the end-of-life care choices made by patients at risk for critical care, and these patients' hospital and ICU utilization. The investigators hypothesize that setting defaults in real ADs will increase the proportion of Veterans selecting comfort-oriented plans of care, decrease selections of life-extending therapies such as mechanical ventilation and dialysis, and reduce the proportion of time during follow-up that Veterans spend in the hospital and/or ICU, without affecting patient satisfaction with end-of-life care planning.
Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) is now widely used for cancer imaging purpose, notably for preoperative work-up. It aims at visualizing organs metabolism. In case of cancer, metabolism is, classically, increased and some hot spots are visible on PET images. Because of respiratory motion some lung tumours (especially the smallest ones) can be falsely interpreted by the clinician. The investigators developed a respiratory-gated PET method in order to reduce the motion issue. The investigators designed a study to investigate its effect on lung cancer (primary or metastasis) to check if it improves the sensitivity/specificity of PET imaging of the lungs. To that aim, patients presenting a lung nodule on a CT examination can be proposed to participate this study. After the standard PET acquisition (acquired in free-breathing), an additional 10 minutes respiratory-gated PET acquisition is performed without additional injection. After that, a breath-hold (~10s) CT is performed.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether muscle activation can be accomplished more effectively and comfortably in challenging subjects using novel configurations of an activation device. A novel device will be compared side by side with a market leading device.
This is a non-randomized, non-interventional pilot observational study designed to follow high-risk patients through their surgical and hospital stay. The investigators will collect 2 4ml vial's of blood (total of 8ml) prior to surgery to assess CV biomarkers - inflammatory, metabolic, hypercoagulable and platelet.
To detect the existence of severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients, which had higher mortality and hospitalization rate, a simplified questionnaire was developed for identifying those COPD patients with severe OSA.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate if the analysis of NT-proBNP might be used as an initial step for the diagnosis of chronic heart failure in patients with COPD in primary health care, and to select patients for a further examination by echocardiography.
ASTHMA: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in which many different types of cells, and various cellular components. The chronic inflammation causes an increase of the over-responsiveness of the airways, which leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, particularly at night or in the early morning hours. These episodes, usually associated with widespread but variable block the airway, which is usually reversible either spontaneously or by treatment. Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases worldwide, posing significant social burden in both children and adults. It is estimated that about 300 million people currently suffer from asthma. The incidence of asthma is universal regardless of the level of development of the country. There is evidence that over the last 20 years the prevalence has increased significantly, specially in pediatric populations. COPD: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a major public health problem. It is the fourth leading cause of chronic morbidity and mortality in the United States after heart disease, strokes and acute respiratory infections, while on an annual basis, the disease robs the lives of more than 3,000,000 people around us worldwide. The most worrying is that the impact has been steadily rising, and this dramatic increase in the frequency shows that by 2020 the disease will be the third leading cause of death. In Greece, 8.4% of the population suffers from COPD. Smoking is the leading cause of COPD. However, not all smokers develop the clinical picture of COPD, suggesting that additional factors are involved in manifestation. Further investigation of risk factors for COPD, methods of reducing exposure to these agents and the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis remain a major area of research to develop effective treatments that will reduce or prevent the development the disease.
The two hypotheses to be tested in this study are that: 1. The administration of transcutaneous electrical muscle stimulation (TCEMS) after completion of conventional exercise training in pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) will result in further improvements in exercise tolerance, functional status and symptoms of patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) above those achieved in PR alone. 2. TCEMS can improve exercise tolerance, functional status and symptoms even among COPD patients who fail to make gains in exercise tolerance by participating in conventional PR due to their debilitation and/or marked cardio-respiratory impairment.
Corticosteroid treatment in diabetic patients admitted for COPD exacerbation are expected to significantly increase hemoglobin A1C levels
The purpose of this study is to find out if starting anti-retroviral therapy (ART) above 500 cluster-of-differentiation-4 (CD4)+ cells/milliliter (mL) ('early ART group') slows the rate of decrease in lung function over time compared to waiting to start ART until the CD4+ drops below 350 cells/mL ('deferred ART group'). Lung function normally declines with age, and both human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and ART have been shown to case a decline in lung function as well. Decline in lung function can be an early indicator of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a significant cause of sickness and death in people with HIV. In this study, lung function will be measured at baseline and every year thereafter by using a spirometer.