Lung Disease
Introduction
Lung disease is common among both men and women. It is more frequent in smokers than non-smokers.
The death rate from these diseases is on 4th place (after heart disease, cancer and stroke) and is increasing in women as a group versus men.
This is because women as a group are smoking more now than men and the associated lung diseases such as lung cancer, pneumonia, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (=COPD) lead to premature death. In the following review I will concentrate on the more common lung problems, their symptoms, how they are diagnosed and how they can be treated. It goes without saying that prevention measures such as stop smoking, wearing protective masks in industrial high risk areas, moving away from smog infested environments etc. will always be the most powerful tool (Ref.1).
Symptoms of lung disease:
The most common symptoms asssociated with lung disease are coughing, shortness of breath (=dyspnea), wheezing, stridor, coughing up blood (=hemoptysis), chest pain, blue skin discoloration (=cyanosis) and clubbing (=enlargement of the fingertips). Some of these symptoms are due to narrowing of the airways, such as wheezing in asthma, others are due to chronic oxygen deficiency, such as cyanosis and clubbing.
Diagnostic tests:
The simplest way for the practicing physician to come to a diagnosis regarding lung diseases is to take a thorough history, to do a careful examination with auscultation (=listening to the lungs with a stethoscope) and to order a chest X-ray. Often diagnoses such as asthma, pneumonia, ephysema, COPD and others can be accurately diagnosed this way. However, the physician today, particularly the lung specialist, (=respirologist or pneumologist) has a number of other tools that can be useful. This is depicted in this table. The links lead to images where the items are depicted.
The following gives an overview of the most common lung diseases.
The links transport you right to the beginning of each chapter where the disease is dealt with in more detail.
| Common lung diseases |
| Name of lung disease: |
Brief description of disease: |
| adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) |
Usually viral in origin, the acute shortness of breath is very similar to the RSD of premature babies |
| atelectasis |
A collapse of a segment of the lower lung, usually in the lower lung area |
| asthma |
Asthma Introduction |
An important lung disease that affects a lot of people. It is an inflammatory condition of the small bronchial tubes (bronchioles), with wheezing and spasm, often associated with allergies. |
| Classification of Severity |
| Asthma Signs and Symptoms |
| Diagnostic Tests for Asthma |
| Asthma Treatment |
| bronchiectasis |
Chronic bronchitis leads to this lung condition where small air sacs melt together forming larger pockets filled with pus |
| bronchitis |
Acute bronchitis due to viruses or bacteria; chronic bronchitis often due to smoker's lung with chronic infection and scarring |
| COPD |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease leads to chronic cough, many infections and evtl. respiratory failure |
| cystic fibrosis |
Congenital lung abnormality with very viscous mucous in airways; leads to COPD, bronchiectasis |
| emphysema |
Chronic asthma, COPD and chronic bronchitis can all lead to this end stage lung disease |
| hypersensitivity pneumonitis |
Farmer's lung is one example, red cedar asthma another |
| lung abscess |
Acute localized infection/pus in one lung segment |
| lung cancer |
Bronchogenic carcinoma is the most common cancer in smokers |
| occupational lung disease |
Examples are silicosis, asbestosis or coal worker pneumoconiosis |
| pleural disorders |
Lung diseases of the lining of the lungs in the chest cavity leading to pleural effusions |
| pneumonia |
Infection of the lung tissue, often bacterial |
| pulmonary emboli |
Clots in the lung vessels lead to this life threatening disease, often originating from clots in the deep veins of the legs (after surgery etc.) |
| pneumothorax |
Collapse of part or of all of a lung leads to this life threatening condition |
| respiratory failure (life support) |
A terminal condition of many lung diseases when not enough oxygen can enter the blood stream because of advanced chronic lung disease such as severe asthma, COPD or chronic bronchitis |
| sleep apnea |
A sleep disorder where the patient stops breathing intermittently for more than 10 seconds and blood oxygen drops |
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