The American College of Chest Physicians and Three Lakes Foundation recently announced a steering committee of experts in the fields of pulmonary medicine and primary care medicine working toward shortening the time to diagnosis for complex lung diseases .
Tejaswini Kulkarni , M . D ., assistant professor and director of the Interstitial Lung Disease Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham , is one of 10 physicians across the country selected to serve on the committee .
Composed of pulmonologists , primary care physicians and a nursing professional , the steering committee will work to create materials to reduce the time it takes to reach a diagnosis for interstitial lung diseases , like pulmonary fibrosis .
Starting with data-gathering surveys sent to both primary care physicians and pulmonologists , the committee will evaluate the findings to develop tools that can be used to aid in diagnosing complex lung diseases .
Affecting around 400,000 people in the United States , ILDs are a group of diseases that cause lung inflammation and / or permanent scars and are frequently misdiagnosed as more common lung diseases . Some studies show that reaching a proper diagnosis for rarer lung diseases can take upward of several years .
Dr . Bhatt Evaluates Targeted Lung Denervation in COPD by Andy Currie
Dr . Surya Bhatt , associate professor in the Division of Pulmonary , Allergy and Critical Care Medicine , is leading one of 33 U . S . sites in evaluating a novel bronchoscopic procedure : targeted lung denervation , or TLD . The clinical trial , known as AIRFLOW-3 , aims to assess effectiveness of TLD in decreasing the rate of moderate or severe exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ).
Millions across the world suffer from COPD , facing flare-ups on a regular basis . COPD flare-ups often cause breathing to become extremely difficult which can be stressful and even frightening for patients . While medications can help with COPD , they do not always effectively control flare-ups .
The TLD procedure is performed through a standard bronchoscope . Once in place , the denervation device delivers targeted radiofrequency energy to the nerves located on the outside of the airways . This permanently disrupts pulmonary nerve input to the lung , reducing the neural hyperactivity that drives flare-ups . The procedure takes about one hour with most patients returning home the same day .
PULMONARY , ALLERGY , AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE