View clinical trials related to Smoking, Tobacco.
Filter by:The purpose of the study conducted at VA Medical Center in Miami is to determine if smoking electronic cigarettes (known as e-cigarettes) that contain nicotine have less negative effects than regular cigarettes on the person's respiratory health. We will assess this by measuring pulmonary function tests, several body molecules and functionality of the airway cells. We will also evaluate how smokers can maintain exclusive electronic cigarettes use. In this study, some people will continue to smoke regular tobacco cigarettes while others will switch to a nicotine-containing electronic cigarette.
Obstructive lung disease is an increasing global health problem of pandemic proportions, with COPD alone affecting >10% of the population. Smoking is the main and most well studies risk factor for developing COPD. However, chronic airway obstruction also in never-smoking populations has recently been recognized as an increasing health problem. In the clinical segment (PI: Prof. C. Magnus Skold), 1000 subjects from the Swedish national SCAPIS study will be clinically well characterized in one of the six Swedish University Hospital Respiratory clinics (clinical site PIs: Anders Andersson, Leif Bjermer, Anders Blomberg, Christer Janson, Lennart Persson, Magnus Skold). This first screening includes all never-smokers with COPD identified in the SCAPIS study. A subset of 300 subjects from the groups of Healthy never-smokers, current-smokers with normal lung function, current-smokers with COPD, ex-smokers with COPD, and never-smokers with COPD will be selected for the Bronchoscopy segment, were sampling will be performed from a number of anatomical locations, including bronchial biopsies, airway epithelial brushings, and bronchoalveolar lavage. Serum, plasma, and urine samples will also be collected. In the systems medicine segment (PI: Assoc. prof Asa M. Wheelock), alterations at the epigenetic, mRNA, microRNA, proteome, metabolome and microbiome level will be performed from multiple lung compartments (airway epithelium, alveolar macrophages, exosomes, and bronchoalveolar exudates). By means of biostatistics and bioinformatics approaches, specific mediators and molecular pathways critical in the pathological mechanisms of obstructive lung disease related to never-smoker disease phenotypes will be identified. In the immunohistochemistry segment (PI: Prof. Jonas Erjefalt), a number of molecules of relevance for disease pathology will be investigated in bronchial biopsies collected from the 300 subjects in the Bronchoscopy segment.