Foreword


Sairam Parthasarathy, MD, serves as Chief of Research at the Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System and is a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona. His research focuses on the relationship between sleep and breathing in both ambulatory and critically ill patients. His research is currently supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Veterans Affairs, US Department of Defense, independent foundations and private industry. As well as being a member of the Editorial Board of US Respiratory Disease, he serves as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. He is also Chair of the Research Committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Chair of the grant review committee of the American Sleep Medicine Foundation, a member of the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board to the NIH, and is an ad hoc reviewer for the NIH review sections. He also serves on the editorial board of Respiratory Care and the American College of Chest Physician’s ACCP-SEEK Sleep Edition. He is board certified in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine and he has published over 50 papers and book chapters on sleep- and respiration-related topics.


elcome to another issue of US Respiratory Disease. This issue promises to be an interesting read, deals with a range of disease conditions, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to critical illness, and provides a broad spectrum of knowledge, ranging from pulmonary physiology to biotechnology. Very appropriately, the issue begins with informing the reader about the latest and greatest COPD news. COPD poses a clear and present danger to the health and wellbeing of the global public, being the only one of the top five killers whose disease-related mortality continues to trend upward. COPD is projected to be the third leading cause of death by 2020, and we have not made a major dent on reducing the morbidity and mortality of this condition. Clearly, better prevention and earlier diagnosis are needed to tackle this disabling condition, which has huge implications for healthcare systems around the world.


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Yet another condition that is underdiagnosed and undertreated is alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. A wide array of biotechnology articles that focus on the therapeutics of alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency provides great insight into this burgeoning area of research and clinical import. The future of medical therapy is taking deliberate and large strides from chemical compounds to proteins and other biologicals. These articles will help readers stay at the cutting edge of the nuances of such shifts in therapeutics.


In the past year, many parts of the world dodged a bullet from a global influenza pandemic, but in contrast many parts of the world were not spared. We gain tremendous insight from the experiences of our colleagues from countries in Europe and the southern hemisphere in this issue. Importantly, the varied clinical presentation and susceptibilities brought applied virology and immunology from the bench to the bedside. We learned many lessons concerning the mobilization of our healthcare system, dissemination of information to the public, emergency preparedness, and how conventional paradigms applicable to respiratory failure—success of non-invasive mechanical ventilation or failure of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO)—may not hold true for this populace. Besides resurgence of discarded therapies such as ECMO, monitoring lactate levels in critical illness poses a comeback in this issue.


While the threat of the 2009 influenza pandemic provided a quick primer in virology and vaccines to the lay public and healthcare workforce, the fight against childhood respiratory viral infections receives less press coverage, but continues to batter the development and wellbeing of our children. In this issue, our pediatric pulmonologists provide us with a tour de force on respiratory syncitial virus. Moreover, the less press-worthy, yet ubiquitous and hardy rhinovirus has more of a story than meets the eye. No respiratory issue is complete without an insightful and informative article on respiratory allergies, and so we are treated to in vitro methods for diagnosing allergy and directing therapy.


Dissemination and implementation of scientific knowledge is crucial for achieving better prevention, earlier and accurate diagnosis, and effective yet personalized care to achieve improvement in respiratory health and wellbeing. This issue is another small step in that direction, and I hope the reader benefits as much as I did from absorbing the contents of this issue. Happy reading! n


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© TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2010


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