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Interventional Pulmonology
Interventional pulmonology (IP, also called interventional pulmonary medicine) is a maturing medical sub-specialty from its parent specialty of pulmonary medicine. It deals specifically with minimally invasive endoscopic and percutaneous procedures for diagnosis and treatment of neoplastic as well as non-neoplastic diseases of the airways, lungs, and pleura. Many IP procedures constitute efficacious yet less invasive alternatives to thoracic surgery. History Before the advent of optical fibers and advances in anesthesiology, interventional pulmonary procedures were mostly limited to foreign body retrieval via rigid bronchoscopy. Gustav Killian (June 2, 1860 – February 24, 1921), a German laryngologist, performed foreign body retrievals from bronchial passages using a rigid laryngoscope/bronchoscope whereas in the United States, Chevalier Jackson (1865 – 1958) was the first to use the rigid bronchoscope. Later, Swedish internist Hans-Christian Jacobaeus first introduced thor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Specialty (medicine)
A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (paediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (pathology), or primary care ( family medicine). After completing medical school or other basic training, physicians or surgeons and other clinicians usually further their medical education in a specific specialty of medicine by completing a multiple-year residency to become a specialist. History of medical specialization To a certain extent, medical practitioners have long been specialized. According to Galen, specialization was common among Roman physicians. The particular system of modern medical specialties evolved gradually during the 19th century. Informal social recognition of medical specialization evolved before the formal legal system. The particular subdivision of the practice of medicine into various s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endobronchial Ultrasound
Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies from person to person and is approximately 20 kilohertz (20,000 hertz) in healthy young adults. Ultrasound devices operate with frequencies from 20 kHz up to several gigahertz. Ultrasound is used in many different fields. Ultrasonic devices are used to detect objects and measure distances. Ultrasound imaging or sonography is often used in medicine. In the nondestructive testing of products and structures, ultrasound is used to detect invisible flaws. Industrially, ultrasound is used for cleaning, mixing, and accelerating chemical processes. Animals such as bats and porpoises use ultrasound for locating prey and obstacles. History Acoustics, the science of sound, starts as far back as Pythagoras in the 6th century BC, who wrot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lung Lavage
Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) (also known as bronchoalveolar washing) is a diagnostic method of the lower respiratory system in which a bronchoscope is passed through the mouth or nose into an appropriate airway in the lungs, with a measured amount of fluid introduced and then collected for examination. This method is typically performed to diagnose pathogenic infections of the lower respiratory airways (leading to, for example pneumonia and COVID-19), though it also has been shown to have utility in diagnosing interstitial lung disease. Bronchoalveolar lavage can be a more sensitive method of detection than nasal swabs in respiratory molecular diagnostics, as has been the case with SARS-CoV-2 where bronchoalveolar lavage samples detect copies of viral RNA after negative nasal swab testing. In particular, bronchoalveolar lavage is commonly used to diagnose infections in people with immune system problems, pneumonia in people on ventilators, and acute respiratory distress syndrom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronchial Thermoplasty
Bronchial thermoplasty is a treatment for severe asthma approved by the FDA in 2010 involving the delivery of controlled, therapeutic radiofrequency energy to the airway wall, thus heating the tissue and reducing the amount of smooth muscle present in the airway wall. This reduces the capacity of the immune system to cause bronchoconstriction through nitric oxide signalling, which is the main root cause of asthma symptoms. Bronchial thermoplasty is normally used to treat patients with severe persistent asthma who do not respond well to typical pharmacotherapy regimens. Procedure A full course of bronchial thermoplasty treatment includes three separate bronchoscopic procedures: one for the each lower lobe of the lung and another for both upper lobes. Each outpatient procedure is performed approximately three weeks apart. Under sedation, a catheter inside a bronchoscope—a thin, flexible tube-like instrument introduced through the patient’s nose or mouth and into their lungs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronchoscopic Lung Volume Reduction (BLVR)
Bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) is a procedure to reduce the volume of air within the lungs. BLVR was initially developed in the early 2000s as a minimally invasive treatment for severe COPD that is primarily caused by emphysema. BLVR evolved from earlier surgical approaches first developed in the 1950s to reduce lung volume by removing damaged portions of the lungs via pneumonectomy or wedge resection. Procedures include the use of valves, coils, or thermal vapour ablation. Procedures BLVR involves the use of valves, coils, or thermal vapour ablation. Valves Endobronchial valves are inserted using a bronchoscope into sections of the lungs damaged by emphysema. Endobronchial valves are medical devices that allow air to exit these sections but not to re-enter. The valves, in effect, cause damaged lung tissue to deflate, thereby reducing the excessive lung volume (hyperinflation) caused by emphysema. Two endobronchial valves have been approved by the FDA for BLVR: Zeph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endobronchial Valve
An endobronchial valve (EBV), is a small, one-way valve, which may be implanted in an airway feeding the lung or part of lung. The valve allows air to be breathed out of the section of lung supplied, and prevents air from being breathed in. This leaves the rest of the lung to expand more normally and avoid air-trapping. Endobronchial valves are typically implanted using a flexible delivery catheter advanced through a bronchoscope in minimally invasive bronchoscopic lung volume reduction procedures in the treatment of severe emphysema. The valves are also removable if they are not working properly. Mechanism The one-way endobronchial valve is typically implanted such that on exhalation air is able to flow through the valve and out of the lung compartment that is fed by that airway, but on inhalation, the valve closes and blocks air from entering that lung compartment. Thus, an implanted endobronchial valve typically helps a lung compartment to empty itself of air. This has been sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent (which almost always involves combinations of drugs) or it may aim to prolong life or to reduce symptoms ( palliative chemotherapy). Chemotherapy is one of the major categories of the medical discipline specifically devoted to pharmacotherapy for cancer, which is called ''medical oncology''. The term ''chemotherapy'' has come to connote non-specific usage of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis (cell division) or induce DNA damage, which is why inhibition of DNA repair can augment chemotherapy. The connotation of the word chemotherapy excludes more selective agents that block extracellular signals ( signal transduction). The development of therapies with specific molecular or genetic targ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brachytherapy
Brachytherapy is a form of radiation therapy where a sealed radiation source is placed inside or next to the area requiring treatment. ''Brachy'' is Greek for short. Brachytherapy is commonly used as an effective treatment for cervical, prostate, breast, esophageal and skin cancer and can also be used to treat tumours in many other body sites. Treatment results have demonstrated that the cancer-cure rates of brachytherapy are either comparable to surgery and external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) or are improved when used in combination with these techniques. Brachytherapy can be used alone or in combination with other therapies such as surgery, EBRT and chemotherapy. Brachytherapy contrasts with unsealed source radiotherapy, in which a therapeutic radionuclide (radioisotope) is injected into the body to chemically localize to the tissue requiring destruction. It also contrasts to External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT), in which high-energy x-rays (or occasionally gamma-rays fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tracheotomy
Tracheotomy (, ), or tracheostomy, is a surgical airway management procedure which consists of making an incision (cut) on the anterior aspect (front) of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea (windpipe). The resulting stoma (hole) can serve independently as an airway or as a site for a tracheal tube or tracheostomy tube to be inserted; this tube allows a person to breathe without the use of the nose or mouth. Etymology and terminology The etymology of the word ''tracheotomy'' comes from two Greek words: the root ''tom-'' (from Greek τομή ''tomḗ'') meaning "to cut", and the word ''trachea'' (from Greek τραχεία ''tracheía''). The word ''tracheostomy'', including the root ''stom-'' (from Greek στόμα ''stóma'') meaning "mouth," refers to the making of a semi-permanent or permanent opening, and to the opening itself. Some sources offer different definitions of the above terms. Part of the ambiguity is due to the uncertainty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video-assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery
Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) is a type of minimally invasive thoracic surgery performed using a small video camera mounted to a fiberoptic thoracoscope (either 5 mm or 10 mm caliber), with or without angulated visualization, which allows the surgeon to see inside the chest by viewing the video images relayed onto a television screen, and perform procedures using elongated surgical instruments. The camera and instruments are inserted into the patient's chest cavity through small incisions in the chest wall, usually via specially designed guiding tubes known as "ports". VATS procedures are done using either conventional surgical instruments or laparoscopic instruments. Unlike with laparoscopy, carbon dioxide insufflation is not generally required in VATS due to the inherent rigidity of the thoracic cage. However, lung deflation on the side of the operated chest is a must to be able to visualize and pass instruments into the thorax; this is usually e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conscious Sedation
Procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) is a technique in which a sedating/dissociative medication is given, usually along with an analgesic medication, in order to perform non-surgical procedures on a patient. The overall goal is to induce a decreased level of consciousness while maintaining the patient's ability to breathe on their own. Airway protective reflexes are not compromised by this process Walls, Ron M., MD; Hockberger, Robert S., MD; Gausche-Hill, Marianne, MD, FACEP, FAAP, FAEMS (2018). ''Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. Ninth Edition''. Elsevier. and therefore endotracheal intubation is not required. PSA is commonly used in the emergency department, in addition to the operating room. Medical uses This technique is often used in the emergency department for the performance of painful or uncomfortable procedures. Common purposes include: * laceration repair * setting fractures * draining abscesses * reducing dislocations * performing endosco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstitial Lung Disease
Interstitial lung disease (ILD), or diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD), is a group of respiratory diseases affecting the interstitium (the tissue and space around the alveoli (air sacs)) of the lungs. It concerns alveolar epithelium, pulmonary capillary endothelium, basement membrane, and perivascular and perilymphatic tissues. It may occur when an injury to the lungs triggers an abnormal healing response. Ordinarily, the body generates just the right amount of tissue to repair damage, but in interstitial lung disease, the repair process is disrupted, and the tissue around the air sacs (alveoli) becomes scarred and thickened. This makes it more difficult for oxygen to pass into the bloodstream. The disease presents itself with the following symptoms: shortness of breath, nonproductive coughing, fatigue, and weight loss, which tend to develop slowly, over several months. The average rate of survival for someone with this disease is between three and five years. The term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
