Did someone say Idiot Pathetic? That's my cue!
Posted on 01/02/2008 8:04:35 PM PST by Coleus
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a disease with unknown cause with a very severe prognosis; when detected, it is already in an advanced stage. Patients suffering from it cannot develop with normality pulmonary gas exchange, and have a very reduced quality of life. Because of lack of an effective treatment, they rarely survive 5 years after being diagnosed. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis affects 13 out of 100,000 men and 7 out of 100,000 women, normally over 40 years of age.
Researchers from the Biomedical Research Institute of Barcelona CSIC (IIBB-CSIC), a centre developing research in the framework of the Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), have discovered and patented a method to stop and revert this disease in an animal model.
Gas exchange is developed in lungs thanks to type 1 pneumocytes in alveoli, cells recovering the inner walls of the alveolar cavity. Occupying the same spaces, there are also type II pneumocytes, precursor cells that repair the damaged alveolar tissue. When idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis appears, this regeneration process cannot be developed correctly and fibrosis advances until respiration is impossible.
The technique developed by researchers from the IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS consists in a transplantation of type II pneumocytes via intratracheal. In order to monitor correctly the transplanted cells with genetic and fluorescence techniques, sexual chromosomal differences were used. Thus, the disease was induced in female rats, and cells from male rats were transplanted. This is a minimally invasive technique which has permitted to regenerate, for the first time, rat fibrotic alveoli where idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was induced.
CSIC has patented as a treatment the cell suspension transplanted with this innovative strategy. The world patent will be tested in humans with a clinical study, soon to be conducted in the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. This study will have the participation of 6 recently diagnosed patients who will receive a suspension of type II pneumocytes coming from a dead donor, since these cells cannot be cultured in the laboratory. Next, researchers will try to obtain type II pneumocytes from adult stem cells.
Results of their research work are published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (176(12):1261-8). This study has had the collaboration of basic researchers, such as Dr. Anna Serrano-Mollar, and Dr. Oriol Bulbena, first and last signatories of the study; and researchers with a clinical background, such as Dr. Antoni Xaubet, from the Unit of Pneumology of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. This turns this work into a paradigm of translational research promoted in IDIBAPS and through other initiatives such as the Network of Centres of Biomedical Research (CIBERs). This research work has been financed through a contribution from the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (FIS) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III.
This is good news. This disease took my uncle. Thanks for the post.
Did someone say Idiot Pathetic? That's my cue!
Mukerjee CM, Carrick J, Walker JC, Woods RL.
Liverpool Hospital, Liverpool, Sydney, Australia.
Two patients presented with long-standing chronic bronchitis and exertional dyspnoea of 5 and 3 months' duration, respectively, and had interlobular septal fibrosis on chest high resolution CT. In the past both had lived in areas in which Strongyloides stercoralis was known to be endemic. Serological tests confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary strongyloidiasis, and both patients were treated with anti-helminthic medications, including albendazole and ivermectin. Following this there was complete resolution of both symptomatic and radiological manifestations of their disease. An awareness of the possibility of Strongyloides infection presenting with respiratory symptoms in patients exposed to this parasite is important in the management of such patients.
PMID: 14708557 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Mariotta S, Pallone G, Li Bianchi E, Gilardi G, Bisetti A.
Department of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Sciences, University La Sapienza, Rome, Italy.
The Strongyloides stercoralis infection is a prominent cause of death in many areas of the world. A 64-year-old man with pulmonary fibrosis was admitted to the hospital because of progressive shortness of breath and increasing cough. The patient had been previously admitted for his illness and had a remarkable immunosuppression due to the use of steroids (CD4+ lymphocytes = 200 x 10(6)/l). Repeated sputum and stool studies were diagnostic for strongyloidiasis. The patient died suddenly from severe cardiorespiratory failure while he was under mebendazole treatment (100 mg b.i.d.). Strongyloidiasis occurs mostly in immunocompromised hosts, as in patients with chronic pulmonary diseases on long-term treatment with corticosteroids, oncology patients under treatment and patients with AIDS.
PMID: 8766880 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Lin AL, Kessimian N, Benditt JO.
Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, Pawtucket.
Strongyloidiasis is caused by the nematode Strongyloides stercoralis. The parasite has a unique life cycle that enables it to cause a hyperinfection syndrome in which pulmonary involvement is characteristic. We describe the case of a 68-yr-old Hispanic male from Puerto Rico with disseminated strongyloidiasis who developed intense granulomatous reaction in the lung associated with interlobular septal fibrosis. Granulomatous lung disease leading to fibrosis within the lung has been well demonstrated in schistosomiasis, another parasitic disease. This case represents the first report, as far as we are aware, of fibrosis within the lung and restrictive pulmonary disease in association with Strongyloides stercoralis.
PMID: 7812554 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
[It can also cause fibrosis in the heart]:
Dept of Medicine, University of the Orange Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
A 42 year old man presented with steroid resistant asthma of 6 months duration. Serial chest radiographs showed migrating interstitial shadowing. Electrocardiographs showed decreasing R-wave progression in the precordial leads, and endomyocardial biopsy showed eosinophil infiltration with fibrosis. Bronchoscopy revealed inflammatory changes and lavage showed filariform larvae of Strongyloides stercoralis in the washings. This confirms the diagnosis of parasitic infection with eosinophilic cardiomyopathy.
PMID: 7841976 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
A good friend died of coronary fibrosis. Probably not from strongyloidiasis.
And yet... And yet... The disease is often diagnosed at autopsy, or after steroid treatment has caused so much proliferation that it is too late to save the patient.
The VA seems to have an intentional, institutional blindness regarding this disease. It is endemic in the soil of (among other places) Vietnam.
I think (I BELIEVE) that, if this institutional blindness can be overcome, we will find that MANY of the anomalies and symptoms which are now blamed on PTSD (and Gulf War Syndrome) wil be found to (at least in part) be caused by Strongyloidiasis.
DG
p.s. In Strongyloidiasis, corticosteroids (Prednisone, Cortisone) KILL!
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