ABSTRACT
It takes â¼3.5 years to reach a diagnosis of bronchiectasis from onset of symptoms: the long patient's journey in Italy https://bit.ly/46XMWAz.
ABSTRACT
It is well known that lung cancer relies on a number of genes aberrantly expressed because of somatic lesions. Indeed, the lungs, based on their anatomical features, are organs at a high risk of development of extremely heterogeneous tumors due to the exposure to several environmental toxic agents. In this context, the microbiome identifies the whole assemblage of microorganisms present in the lungs, as well as in distant organs, together with their structural elements and metabolites, which actively interact with normal and transformed cells. A relevant amount of data suggest that the microbiota plays a role not only in cancer disease predisposition and risk but also in its initiation and progression, with an impact on patients' prognosis. Here, we discuss the mechanistic insights of the complex interaction between lung cancer and microbiota as a relevant component of the microenvironment, mainly focusing on novel diagnostic and therapeutic objectives.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 survivors are associated with acute respiratory failure (ARF) and show a high prevalence of impairment in physical performance. The present studied aimed to assess whether we may cluster these individuals according to an exercise test. The presented study is a retrospective analysis of 154 survivors who were admitted to two hospitals of Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri network, Italy. Clinical characteristics, walked distance, heart rate (HR), pulse oximetry (SpO2), dyspnoea, and leg fatigue (Borg scale: Borg-D and Borg-F, respectively) while performing the six-minute walking test (6MWT) were entered into unsupervised clustering analysis. Multivariate linear regression identified variables that were informative for the set of variables used for cluster definition. Cluster 1 (C1: 86.4% of participants) and Cluster 2 (C2: 13.6%) were identified. Compared to C1, the individuals in C2 were significantly older, showed significantly higher increase in fatigue and in dyspnoea, greater reduction in SpO2, and a lower HRpeak during the test. The need of walking aids, time from admission to acute care hospitals, age, body mass index, endotracheal intubation, baseline HR and baseline Borg-D, and exercise-induced SpO2 change were significantly associated with the variables that were used for cluster definition. Different characteristics and physiological parameters during the 6MWT characterise survivors of COVID-19-associated ARF. These results may help in the management of the long-term effects of the disease.
