Parasitic infestations demonstrated a decline in the past decade as a result of better hygiene practices and improved socioeconomic conditions. Nevertheless, global immigration, increased numbers of the immunocompromised people, international traveling, global warming, and rapid urbanization of the cities have increased the susceptibility of the world population to parasitic diseases. A number of new human parasites, such as Plasmodium knowlesi, in addition to many potential parasites, have urged the interest of scientific community. A broad spectrum of protozoal parasites frequently affects the respiratory system, particularly the lungs. The diagnosis of parasitic diseases of airway is challenging due to their wide varieties of clinical and roentgenographic presentations. So detailed interrogations of travel history to endemic areas are critical for clinicians or pulmonologists to manage this entity. The migrating adult worms can cause mechanical airway obstruction, while the larvae can cause airway inflammation. This paper provides a comprehensive review of both protozoal and helminthic infestations that affect the airway system, particularly the lungs, including clinical and roentgenographic presentations, diagnostic tests, and therapeutic approaches.

Nanotechnology has been believed for many years ago to offer new methods for both diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis which is globally infectious disease burden in many countries, especially in developing and under-developing countries. Nanotechnological diagnosis of tuberculosis is expected to cost cheaper than many currently available diagnostic tools. Many researches are currently ongoing in the field of synthetic carriers for antituberculosis chemotherapy both oral and inhaled routes while the potentially curative drugs are available for over 50 years.

Today, exhaled nitric oxide has been studied the most, and most researches have now focusd on asthma. More than a thousand different volatile organic compounds have been observed in low concentrations in normal human breath. Alkanes and methylalkanes, the majority of breath volatile organic compounds, have been increasingly used by physicians as a novel method to diagnose many diseases without discomforts of invasive procedures. None of the individual exhaled volatile organic compound alone is specific for disease. Exhaled breath analysis techniques may be available to diagnose and monitor the diseases in home setting when their sensitivity and specificity are improved in the future.

The majority of patients with lung cancer present with advanced stage which contributes to death of more people than any other malignancy in the world. The discovery of a number of lung cancer-molecular alterations contributes to uniquely targeted therapies with specific inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer such as erlotinib, gefitinib and crizotinib. Pemetrexed has statistically shown significantly reduced adverse side effects of drug compared with docetaxel. V1801, an analog of gefitinib may overcome gefitinib resistance in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Thymosin α1, an immunomodulator significantly improves patient's quality of life by enhancing T-cell function, stimulation of Tcell maturation and differentiation. Various novel compounds and chemotherapeutics were introduced in 2013 patents such as taxane, quinazoline, arylamino purine, benzodiazepine, pyrrolopyrimidine, nitrobenzamide, cyclopropane amide, 4-iodo-3-nitrobenzamide, heteroaryl (alkyl) dithiocarbamate, and histone deacetylase in treating non-small-cell lung cancer and piperidine, piperazine, picoplatin, and arsenic trioxide in treating small-cell lung cancer.