Global and regional lung function assessment using portable electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system: clinical study.

Recent development of affordable, portable and self-administrable electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system demonstrated the feasibility of using standalone EIT and subject's anthropometrics to predict the gold standard spirometry indicators for lung-function assessment. Compared to spirometry, the system showed the advantage of providing spatial mapping of the spirometry indicators. Nevertheless, the previous study was limited to healthy subjects. Here, we recruited (N=88): 47 lung disease patients and 41 healthy controls to perform simultaneous EIT and spirometry measurements to validate the capabilities of the system. Lung disease patients include 13 interstitial lung disease (ILD), 10 asthma, 8 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 8 bronchiectasis, and 8 with other diseases including left pneumonectomy, lung cancer, lung tumor, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, motor neuron disease, heart failure and bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome. The results showed significant correlation of the predicted global spirometry indicators (p<0.0001) and significant distinguishability between most disease groups and healthy subjects demonstrating the capability of the EIT system in diagnostic screening. Furthermore, the regional mapping of the spirometry indicators is evaluated and shown to be distinct for each disease group, providing an additional dimension for medical professionals to diagnose and monitor lung disease patients.Clinical Relevance- This establishes the significance of EIT-based global and regional indicators for assessing lung function on lung disease patients.

Influenza B/Streptococcal co-infection complicated by organizing pneumonia.

Organizing pneumonia is a rare complication of influenza infection that has substantial morbidity. We report the first case of organizing pneumonia associated with influenza B and Streptococcus pneumoniae coinfection that had significant improvement with corticosteroid treatment. The clinical and radiological features of organizing pneumonia associated with this coinfection are similar to those after influenza A infection. Timely use of systemic glucocorticosteroids would be of benefit in promoting resolution for influenza-associated organizing pneumonia.