No abstract

ObjectiveThere has been growing interest in studying small airway disease through measures of ventilation distribution, thanks to the resurgence of the nitrogen single-breath washout (N2SBW) test. Therefore, this study evaluated the contribution of the N2SBW test to the detection of pulmonary involvement in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).ResultsTwenty-one patients with RA underwent clinical evaluation, pulmonary function tests (PFTs), including the N2SBW test, and computed tomography (CT). The main tomographic findings were air trapping and bronchiectasis (57.1% and 23.8% of cases, respectively). According to the phase III slope of the N2SBW (phase III slope), 11 and 10 patients had values < 120% predicted and > 120% predicted, respectively. Five patients with limited involvement on CT had a phase III slope > 120%. The residual volume/total lung capacity ratio was significantly different between patients with phase III slopes < 120% and > 120% (P = 0.024). Additionally, rheumatoid factor positivity was higher in patients with a phase III slope > 120% (P = 0.021). In patients with RA and airway disease on CT, the N2SBW test detects inhomogeneity in the ventilation distribution in approximately half of the cases, even in those with normal conventional PFT results.

Objective: To analyze symptoms at different times of day in patients with COPD. Methods: This was a multicenter, cross-sectional observational study conducted at eight centers in Brazil. We evaluated morning, daytime, and nighttime symptoms in patients with stable COPD. Results: We included 593 patients under regular treatment, of whom 309 (52.1%) were male and 92 (15.5%) were active smokers. The mean age was 67.7 years, and the mean FEV 1 was 49.4% of the predicted value. In comparison with the patients who had mild or moderate symptoms, the 183 (30.8%) with severe symptoms were less physically active (p = 0.002), had greater airflow limitation (p < 0.001), had more outpatient exacerbations (p = 0.002) and more inpatient exacerbations (p = 0.043), as well as scoring worse on specific instruments. The most common morning and nighttime symptoms were dyspnea (in 45.2% and 33.1%, respectively), cough (in 37.5% and 33.3%, respectively), and wheezing (in 24.4% and 27.0%, respectively). The intensity of daytime symptoms correlated strongly with that of morning symptoms (r = 0.65, p < 0.001) and that of nighttime symptoms (r = 0.60, p < 0.001), as well as with the COPD Assessment Test score (r = 0.62; p < 0.001), although it showed only a weak correlation with FEV 1 (r = −0.205; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Dyspnea was more common in the morning than at night. Having morning or nighttime symptoms was associated with greater daytime symptom severity. Symptom intensity was strongly associated with poor quality of life and with the frequency of exacerbations, although it was weakly associated with airflow limitation.

Sarcoidosis is a multi-systemic granulomatous disease. Affected individuals can show spontaneous healing, develop remission with drug treatment within 2 years, or become chronically ill. Our main goal was to identify features that are related to prognosis. The study consisted of 101 patients, recruited at a single center, who were already diagnosed with sarcoidosis at the start of the study or were diagnosed within 48 months. Ninety individuals were followed-up for at least 24 months and were classified according to clinical outcome status (COS 1 to 9). Those with COS 1–4 and COS 5–9 were classified as having favorable and unfavorable outcomes, respectively. Unconditional logistic regression analyses were conducted to define which variables were associated with sarcoidosis outcomes. Subsequently, we established a scoring system to help predict the likelihood of a favorable or unfavorable outcome. Of our patients, 48% developed a chronic form of the disease (COS 5–9). Three clinical features were predictive of prognosis in sarcoidosis. We built a score-based model where the absence of rheumatological markers (1 point), normal pulmonary functions (2 points), and the presence of early respiratory symptoms manifestations (2 points) were associated with a favorable prognosis. We predicted that a patient with a score of 5 had an 86% (95% confidence interval [CI] 74%–98%) probability of having a favorable prognosis, while those with scores of 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0 had probabilities of 72% (95% CI 59–85%), 52% (95% CI 40–63%), 31% (95% CI 17–44%), 15% (95% CI 2–28%), and 7% (95% CI 0–16%) of having a favorable prognosis, respectively. Thus, our easy-to-compute algorithm can help to predict prognosis of sarcoidosis patients, facilitating their management.

The lung is often involved in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Many of these patients may have normal conventional pulmonary function testing (PFT) in the presence of radiological changes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contribution of the nitrogen single-breath washout (N 2 SBW) test, which measures the ventilation distribution, in detecting