Respiratory Flashcards
What are some common VIRAL respiratory tract infections?
- common cold (coryza)
- sore throat (pharyngitis)
- Tonsillitis
- Sinusitis
- Laryngitis
- Croup
- acute bronchitis
- bronchiolitis
- influenza
- SARS
What are some common URT syndromes?
- common cold
- pharyngitis/tonsillitis
- sinusitis
- otitis media
- epiglottitis
- croup
What are the main actions of exogenous glucocorticoid use in asthma?
-decrease inflammatory cell number and activation
(via targetting IL-8, COX2, ICAM-1, NOS2)
-increases activation of anti-inflammatory effectors
(by activating GILZ, MKP-1, IkBalpha)
-decrease probability and severity of asthma episodes
Exogenous glucocorticoid use in asthma targets what specific inflammatory cells?
- decreased activity and recruitment of eosinophils, macrophages, mast cells,
- decreased cytokine production by macrophages, smooth muscle and fibroblasts
- decreased collagen production by s muscle and fibroblasts
What are the 2 main categories of glucocorticoids used in asthma?
- inhaled/topical
- oral/systemic
What are some differences between inhaled and oral glucocorticoids?
Inhaled
- start at the effective dose and then step down
- well tolerated/few SE
- used in combination with LABAs
Oral
- either treat for several days for acute asthma or chronically for sever asthma
- there are dose limiting SE
What are the side effects of inhaled glucocorticoids?
- dysphonia
- oral candidiasis
- decreased serum cortisol
What are the side effects of oral glucocorticoids?
- osteoporosis
- diabetes
- muscle wasting
- HT
- growth suppression
- suppression of HPA axis
- eventual atrophy of the adrenal gland with chronic use
- if you suddenly stop them you can go into withdrawal
Describe the regulation of endogenous glucocorticoids
cortisol (an endogenous glucocorticoid) is released from the adrenal gland where is negatively feedbacks to
- inhibit the hypothalamus from releasing corticotropin releasing hormone,
- it inhibits the anterior pituitary from releasing corticotropin
- inhibits the immune system and the CV system
What other 2 drugs can be used to treat asthma other than glucocorticoids?
Methylxanthines (eg theophylline)
Phosphodiesterase inhibitors (eg roflumilast)
Briefly explain the mechanism behind using theophylline for asthma
- PDE inhibition/ s muscle relaxant
- adenosine antagonism
- HDAC2 activation
What are some side effects of using theophylline in asthma?
- nausea
- vomiting
- diarrhea
- CNS stimulation
- cardio stimulation–> dysthymia
Describe the steps in asthma therapy
Step 1: intermittent inhaled SABA
Step 2: add mildly persistent inhaled glucocorticoid
Step 3: add moderate persistent inhaled LABA
Step 4: increase daily inhaled glucocorticoid, maintain daily LABA, plus theophylline, anti leukotriene and oral glucocorticoid
Step 5: add oral prednisolone
What does GOLD stand for? What is it used for?
Global initiative for chronic Obstructive Lung Disease -its a way to classify the severity of airflow limitation in people with COPD
GOLD1= mild
GOLD2= moderate
GOLD3=severe
GOLD4= very severe
The alveolar capillary membrane is composed of what
- layer of surfactant
- type 1 alveolar cells
- basement membrane (shared)
- vascular endothelial cell
What are some characteristics of the alveolar capillary membrane?
- thin (o.5 microns)
- large SA= 50-100m2
- alveolar volume= 3-6L
- capillary volume= 80ml
What are some diseases that can disrupt the alveolar capillary membrane?
- inflammation
- infection
- fibrosis
- emphysema
- fluid
- cancer
What are the likely physiological effects of disrupting the alveolar capillary membrane?
- abnormal gas exchange
- abnormal lung mechanics
- pulmonary vascular complications
Describe the diffussion of gases in the lungs
- diffusion is passive/non E requiring
- driven by diffs in partial pressures of gases on either side of the membrane
- rate of diffusion is driven by Ficks Law
What is Ficks law?
The rate of diffusion is proportional to [AxD(P1-P2)]/T
Compare the diffusion rate of CO2 to O2
CO2 diffusion rate is 20x that of O2
Describe the diffusion of Oxygen
- very fast
- 0.75 secs at rest
- 0.25 secs during exercise
- there is built in redundency (i.e. if we decrease transit time e.g. in exercise, there is still enough time for adequate diffusion of O2)
- NB normal gas exchange is not diffusion limited, but it in disease states gas exchange is diffusion limited
Describe the phrase: diffusion limitation of oxygen transfer
- oxygen transfer can be diffusion limited in disease states
- if the a-c membrane is grossly abnormal in severe disease O2 transfer is diffusion limited at rest
- in moderate disease the O2 transfer is only diffusion limited during exercise
Describe the diffusion of carbon dioxide
- its similar to O2 but 20x faster
- diffusion limitation only occurs in very severe abnormalities of the membrane
- when there is an elevated PaCO2 it is due to inadequate alveolar ventilation (VA)
- PaCO2 is inversely proportional to alveolar ventilation
What are some causes of low PaO2?
- low PiO2
- low ventilation
- abnormal gas exchange (via low V/Q, shunt or diffusion impairment)
What are some causes of a high PaCO2?
Low ventilation
What are the effects of restrictive lung disease?
- increased sensation of breathing
- increased elastic WOB
- decreased lung volume
- altered pattern of breathing
- decreased max ventilation
- abnormal gas exchange that worsens during exercise
Describe the mechanism behind increase sensation and WOB in restrictive lung disease.
Inspiration muscles need to generate higher Ps to overcome the stiffness (decreased compliance/ elastic WOB). This leads to
- recruitment of accessory muscles
- increased O2 consumption if resp muscles
- risk of muscle fatigue–> ventilatory failure
What happens to the FVC, FEV1 and FER in restrictive lung disease?
FVC is reduced
FEV1 is reduced
FER is normal (because FVC and FEV1 has decreased in proportion)
Minute ventilation is proportional to what…
metabolic activity
Describe the type of breaths people take when they have stiff lungs
rapid and shallow breaths
In people with restrictive lung disease exercise is often limited by what?
- hypoxia
- pulmonary HT
What reduces surface tension in the alveoli and what happens as a result to this?
- surfactant
- increases the compliance
What are the parameters that describe ventilatory failure?
PaO2 50mmHg
What is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?
- a fatal interstitial lung disease
- mean survival= 3 years
- aka usual interstitial pneumonitis
- scarring thickens and stiffens alveolar walls leading to impaired oxygen transfer, increased WOB, resp failure
- drugs used: pirfenidone (TGFbeta modifier), nintedanib (triple kinase inhibitor)
What are the types/causes of pulmonary arterial hypertension?
- idiopathic
- familial (mutation in BMPII receptors)
- secondary (chronic hypoxia from: pulmonary fibrosis, COPD, altitude)
What are some treatments for PAH?
Endothelin receptor antagonists
-bosentan, sitaxentan, ambisentan
Prostanoids (prostacyclin analgoues)
PDEI
-sildenafil
What is a systematic review?
- lit review that focuses on 1 question
- steps= identify, selection&appraisal, synthesis
- has well defined criteria
- reviews clinical trials and observational data
- its the highest level of evidence
What is a meta-analysis?
- statistical aspect of a systematic review
- derives pooled weighted average effect sizes
- its more quantitative than systematic reviews
- it mainly takes experimental data
- it functions to summarise the current lit, increase the power of results, resolve uncertainty, increase precision and answer other questions
What does the identify step in performing a systematic review consist of?
- define a clear question
- look at PICOT parameters
- search databases using MESH terms and relevant spelling
- look at other reference lists
- look at grey literature
- adopt inclusion/exclusion criteria
What does the selection&appraisal step in performing a systematic review consist of?
- done by at least 2 independent ppl
- read all abstracts
- apply inclusion and exclusion criteria
- look at full paper
- access for quality
What does the synthesis step in performing a systematic review consist of?
-perform a meta-analysis
Describe what a forest plot is?
-quick way to understand systematic reviews
-squares= inidividual studies
area of the square= sample size
horizontal line in the square= CI
verticle line in the square= RR
-diamonds= pooled effects
horizontal width= CI
vertical width= weighted effect size
-line of null effect
What is heterogeneity and what are the different types?
Heterogeneity= a test to determine how different the studies being compared are to each other
- p value>0.05 is good here because it says the studies are similar enough to be pooled i.e. they have failed the heterogeneity test
- types: statistical heterogeneity, non-statistical heterogeneity
What is statistical heterogeneity?
- measures effect/outcome
- its quantitative
What is non-statistical heterogeneity?
- aka methodological/situational heterogeneity
- use PICOT
- its qualitative
What are some common LRT infection syndromes?
- acute bronchitis
- acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis
- bronchiolitis
- pneumonia (acute bacterial, atypical, others)
- empyema
- lung abscess
What causes acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis?
bacterial infection on a compromised lung
- strept. pneumococci
- H. influenzae
What causes bronchiolitis?
-RSV
What causes acute bacterial pneumonia?
- pneumococci (community derived pneumonia)
- H. influenzae
- staph (hospital derived pneumonia)
- Klebs (hospital derived pneumonia)
- legionella
- TB
- chlamydophila
What causes atypical pneumonia?
- mycoplasma
- chlamydia
- M. catarrhalis
- influenza
- RSV
- adenovirus
What causes other pneumonia?
Fungi
- Histoplasma
- Aspergillus
- Pneumocystis
What causes lung abcesses?
- mixed anaerobes
- Staph
- Klebs
What causes empyema?
-staph. aureus
How do you treat pneumonia?
- you need to distinguish between community derived and hospital acquired
- look at the severity index
- look at any underlying illnesses
- look at RFs
- determine the type of specimen to see if AB treatment is appropriate
- Pen G/amoxycillin plus doxycycline/macrolide
- vaccines
What are some common causes of the common cold?
- rhinovirus
- parainfluenza virus
- RSV
- enterovirus
- coronavirus
- human metapneumovirus
What are some causes of epiglottitis?
-H-influenza type b
What are some causes of croup/laryngio-tracheal bronchitis?
- parainfluenza virus
- influenza A
- RSV
What are some causes of otitis media?
- pneumococci
- H.influenzae
- M.catarrhalis
What are some causes of sinusitis?
primary= viral secondary= h.influenzae and strept. pneumoniae
What are some causes of pharyngitis/tonsillitis with nasal involvement?
not likely to be bacterial
- adenovirus
- enterovirus
- parainfluenza virus
- influenza virus
What are some causes of pharyngitis/tonsillitis without nasal involvement?
- adenovirus
- influenza
- enterovirus
- reovirus
- strept. pyogenes
- strept. C
- strept. G
What is a tropism?
the anatomical localisation of an infection
List some common routes of entry for viruses
- paraenteral inoculation
- skin
- conjunctiva
- respiratory tract
- ailmentary tract
- urogenital tract
What are some barriers in the ailmentary tract that viruses need to overcome?
- sequestration in intestinal contents
- mucus
- stomach acidity
- intestinal alkalinity
- proteolytic enzymes form pancreas
- bile
- IgA
- scavenging macrophages
What are some barriers in the respiratory tract that viruses need to overcome?
- mucus
- cilia
- alveolar macrophages
- temperature gradient
- IgA
What are some different mechanisms of viral spread in the body?
- local spread on epithelial surfaces
- subepithelial invasion and lymphatic spread
- via the bloodstream
- infects the foetus
- infects the baby at birth
Describe the different types of viremia
Free in the plasma viremia
- produced by infected vascular endothelium or released from the liver and spleen
- neutralised by Ab and removed by macrophages
- there are 2 stages: 1st small numbers, 2nd large numbers
Cell associated viremia
- can persist if the viral genome becomes latent
- avoids CD8 attack when latent
What determines a tropism?
- availability of receptors
- optimal temp
- stability in extremes of pH
- ability to replicate inside macrophages and lymphocytes
- polarised release
- presence of activating enzymes
What are some types of viral induced damage to tissues?
- loss of function
- initiation of apoptosis
- death of cells directly form viral replication
- death from toxicity of viral products
What are some signs of immunopathology?
- fever
- IL-1, TNF
- increased size of LNs
List some targets for viral evasion strategies
- Ab
- Ab and T cells
- T cell priming by DCs
- CD8 cell recognition
- complement
- NK cell recognition
- Interferon
- Apoptosis inhibition
- cytokines
Describe how viruses evade Abs
-antigenic variation in B cell epitopes by antigenic drift
Describe how viruses evade Abs and T cells
latency
Describe how viruses stop T cell priming by DCs
- blockage of cytokine induced maturation of T cells
- virus encoded homologue of cytoplasmic tail of TLR4 therefore no signal transduction
- blockage of T cell stimulation
Describe how viruses evade CD8 T cell recognition
- Ag variation in CD8 epitopes
- inhibition of proteosome
- decreased MHC I expression or transcription
- inhibition of viral peptide release from the ER
- inhibition of processing and presentation
Describe how viruses evade complement
-viral encoded homologues
Describe how viruses evade NK cell recognition
- virus encoded MHC I like molecule
- upregulation of non-classical class I molecules
- mutations in ligand for activating receptor
Describe how viruses evade interferon
-interfere with PKR pathway by small RNAs, ds RNA binding proteins, PKR binding proteins
Describe how viruses evade cytokines
- virus encoded cytokine receptor homologues
- intracellular blocking of cytokine production
- intracellular interference with cytokine function
What are some factors that affect susceptibility to viral infections?
Genetic
- inherited defects
- receptor genes
- IFN inducible genes
- polymorphisms in genes controlling immune responses
Non-genetic
- age
- malnutrition
- hormones and pregnancy
- dual infections
What are the types of outcomes of a viral infection?
- fatal
- full recovery
- recovery but permanent damage
- persistent infection
What are the stages of viral replication?
- Attachment
- Penetraction
- Uncoating
- Gene transcription
- Assembly
- Release
Describe each step of viral replication
Attachment
-via carb or protein receptors
Penetration
-by fusion or endocytosis
Uncoating
Gene transcription
-DNA viruses replicate in the nucleus
(protein synthesis)
–early proteins are nonstructural
Assembly
-spontaneous or proteolytic cleavage
Release
- lysis
- budding for enveloped viruses
- secretatory pathway for golgi derived enveloped viruses
What are type I pneumocytes?
- make up the majority of the SA
- they are the exchange surface
- have tight junctions
- simple squamous
What are type II pneumocytes?
- 5% of SA
- more numerous
- cuboidal cells
- short microvili
- lamellar bodies produce surfactant
- can replace itself or produce type I pneumocytes
Describe the order of cells in the blood gas barrier from the alveolar lumen to the blood plasma
- alveolar lument
- surfactant
- type I pneumocyte
- basal lamina
- CT
- basal lamina
- endothelial cell
- plasma
Describe the structure of a bronchus
- thinner walls than the trachea
- cartilage plates
- s muscle between lamina propria and submucosa
- glands
- lymphoid nodules
Describe the structure of a brionchiole
- NO cartilage
- 1-2mm diam
- resp epithelium loses goblet cells and ciliated columnar cells
- gains clara cells
- radial CT
- s muscle
Describe the structure of a terminal brionchiole
- final level of the conducting system
- NO goblet cells
- 1-2 layers of s muscle
- clara cells
- cuboidal epithelium
- cilia
Describe the structure of a respiratory brionchiole
- alveoli start to appear–> alveolar ducts
- epithelium is cuboidal to squamous
- intermittent wall
Describe the structure of an alveolus
- 200um in diam
- simple squamous epithelium
- wall contains capillaries
- alveoli are connected by pores
- interalveolar septum
Describe the process of inspiration
- stimulation of the diaphragm by phrenic nerves C3,4,5
- stimulation of external intercostal muscles by intercostal nerves
- increase volume of the thorax
- negative intrapulmonary P
- sucks air into lungs
Describe the process of expiration
- passive
- inspiratory muscles relax
- elastic recoil of lungs
- generates a positive intrapulmonary P
- pushes air out
In a normal person FEV1 should be what % of FVC?
-greater than 70%
Describe the FVC, FEV1 and FER in people with airflow obstruction
FVC is normal but it takes longer to get there
FEV1 is smaller than 70% of FVC
FER is smaller than 70%
Why is it important to match ventilation and perfusion?
Because this is when gas exchange is most efficient
What diseases commonly have V/Q mismatch?
-COPD and asthma
What are the diff types of V/Q mismatch?
- Low V/Q units
- Shunt
What is the compensatory mechanism done by the body in response to a V/Q mismatch?
- vasoconstriction in areas of low V in order to reduce the hypoxaemic effects
- this can lead to increased pulmonary artery P
What is the alveolar-arterial gradient?
-a measure of the overall efficiency of gas exchange across ALL A-C units
PAO2= PiO2 - (PACO2/RQ) PiO2= 150 PACO2= PaCO2 from blood gas results RQ= 0.8
gradient= PAO2-PaO2
PaO2 from blood gas results
normal gradient <15-30
In order to breath what 2 forces must you overcome?
- resistive force
- elastic force
What does hypoxaemia mean?
-decreased O2 content of the blood which leads to decreased O2 in the tissues
What does hypercapnemia mean?
-increased CO2 which leads to respiratory acidosis
What are the normal blood gas and pH parameters?
PaO2 ~100mmHg
PaCO2= 40mmHg
pH= 7.40
What are the different types of validity?
Internal validity
- how well did it answer the q?
- how did the study deal with bias and confounding?
External validity
- generalisability
- use PICOT