Respiratory medicine Flashcards
What areas of the CNS control breathing?
There is a voluntary aspect of breathing controlled by the cerebral brain cortex
The brainstem is responsible for generating automatic rhythm. It has different interconnected neurones situated in the pons and the medlla. These have synapses with the respiatory muscles.
What are the three different types of receptors in the lung that influence breathing patterns?
Slowly adapting receptors= stretch receptors, stimulated by stretching of airway walls- initiates expiration.
Rapidly Adapting receptors= irritant receptors, respond to chemicals eg smoke, initiates cough, bronchoconstriction and mucus production
Bronchial C-fibre endings are stimulated by increase interstitial fluid (oedem) and inflammatory mediators.
What are the different conditions relating to abnormal oxygen and carbon dioxide levels?
What are chemoreceptors and where are they located?
Chemoreceptors are sensors that detect changes in CO2, O2, and pH
What is COPD?
COPD patients find it hard to exhale due to blockages in their airways and decreased elastic recoil
COPD is when the lungs fail to ventilate adequately and this causes hypoxia and CO2 buildup, causing chronic hypercapnia and loss of sensitivity of central chemoreceptors.
A COPD patient’s drive to breathing is controlled by hypoxia and their drive abolished if the patient is given high inspired O2.
What happens to breathing patterns whilst sleeping?
During sleep…
- Respiratory drive decreases
- there is a reduction in metabolic rate
- there is reduced input from higher centres such as pons and cortex
- patients with impaired ventilation first develop respiratory failure during sleep
What is phasic and tonic activity in lung breathing patterns?
Tonic activity= continuous background activity which tends to maintain patients airways and varies with the state of alertness.
Phasic activity is contraction of upper airway muscles, which opens the upper airways and facilitates inward airflow.
What is obstructive sleep apnoea?
During sleep, there can be a loss of tonic activity to upper airways which can collapse to give cessation to breathing
Causes fragmented sleep and daytime sleepiness
Risk factors are alcohol, nasal obstruction and anatomical anomalies.
How is the pressure gradient formed between the lungs and the atmosphere?
Gas moves along a pressure gradient which is achieved due to the thoracic cage.
Tension between lung elastic recoil (inward) and chest wall elastic recoil (outwards) that creates the pressure gradient between the alveoli and the atmosphere.
How do we inspire and expire?
INSPIRATION= The brain influences the external intercostal muscles which pull ribs upwards. This causes pleural space pressure to decrease and therefore decreases the alveolar pressure.
EXPIRATION= doesn’t require activity from the brain, lungs move inwards due to elastic recoil.
FORCED EXPIRATION= diaphragm moves upwards due to abdominal muscles contracting, internal intercostal muscles contract resulting in the ribs moving downwards.
What is the carbon dioxide/bicarbonate buffering system?
Dissolved CO2 is in equilibrium with carbonic acid ionised to give bicarbonate, which acts as a buffer to regulate the hydrogen ion concentration.
Why do we need to carry out gas transport?
In Oxidative metabolism, dietary fuels provide energy through their oxidisation by O2 to CO2. This generates ATP.
What is Henry’s law?
The concentration of a dissolved gas is directly proportional to its partial pressure.
What factors influence how fast a gas diffuses through a membrane?
- Difference in concentration on either side of the membrane
- the molecular size of the gas
- the solubility in the hydrophobic interior of the membrane
- membrane area
- membrane thickness
What are the effects of atmospheric nitrogen?
It has high atmospheric content, but low solubility in water. It has no biological role in humans but can dissolve in blood.
This can be a problem for divers under high pressure, there can be high dissolved concentrations which has an anaesthetic effect known as ‘nitrogen narcosis’, results in confusion.
How much oxygen is dissolved in plasma in the blood?
Oxygen has a partial pressure of 13.3kPa
1.5% is dissolved in plasma, rest is bound by haemoglobin
What is the structure of haemoglobin?
It is a tetramer, it contains 4 subunits- 2 alpha and 2 beta.
Connected to an iron atom in the middle which is maintained in the ferrous state.
What is myoglobin?
It is the oxygen storing subunit in muscles which binds one molecule of oxygen
What is the Bohr effect?
In deoxygenation haemoglobin, binding of first oxygen molecule changes the conformation of the protein, and the other 3 subunits have a higher affinity for oxygen- called CO-OPERATIVITY
(Mb is myoglobin)
Produces a SIGMOID SATURATION CURVE
What are the Bohr, Haldane and 2,3-BPG effects?
Bohr= increased proton concentration favours oxygen dissociation
Haldane= CO2 promotes oxygen dissociation
2.3-bisphospholycerate is a metabolite which binds to oxyhaemoglobin and causes dissociation of oxygen (it lowers the affinity of Hb for oxygen, improving oxygen delivery)
What are the effects of anaemia and CO-poisoning on O2 delivery by Hb?
In an anaemic person, whilst they have 50% less Hb, the remaining Hb molecules can still deliver oxygen. In CO poisoned individuals the curve is shifted to left because CO locks the Hb into the oxy-conformation (high affinity) so it doesn’t release oxygen.
What is methaemoglobin?
When an electron is spilled from the ferrous atom, called methaemoglobin and is no longer capable of transporting O2.
There is a repair, however if there is a mutation if the repair system, can cause high levels of mHb.
How is CO2 transported around in the blood?
7% is dissolved, 70% is hydrated to carbonic acid and bicarbonate and 23% is combined as carbamino-Hb (bonded to the N-terminal groups of the chains)
How is CO2 hydrated to carbonic acid?
It is hydrated by reaction with water to carbonic acid by the enzyme carbonic anydrase in the red blood cell
This then ionises to bicarbonate.
The bicarbonate leaves the red blood cell through a transporter- the opposite happens at the lungs.
What does the drug Erythropoiten do?
Increases Hb- used to treat patients but also illegally in sports.
What is the allosteric effect?
The afinity of binding O2 increases with each successively bound O2 molcule.
What is a right shift in the Hb saturation curve and how can a right shift occur?
A right shift means there is less affinity for oxygen from Hb and it gives up oxygen more readily.
This can be cause by the following effects:
What are the different partial pressures of oxygen in air, the trachea, alevoli, arteries and veins?
Why is there not an equilibrium between alveolar and arterial partial pressure?
- There may be mixing of venous blood with arterial blood
- not all the blood that passes through the lungs gets oxygenated
- alveolar dead space where ventilation is not occuring.
When does hypoventilation occur and what are the effects of it?
Can occur in altitude, when there is a problem with the alveolar or capillary membrane or due to a miss-match of ventilation and perfusion.
It causes a lower partial pressure of O2 which results in lower blood oxygen content
What happens to the gas content of CO2 and O2 during hypoventilation and hyperventiliation ?
What is physiological dead space?
Physiological dead space = anatomical dead space + alveolar dead space
What is alveolar dead space?
Re[resents areas of insufficient blood supply for gas exchange
Increases with age and disease
What is respiratory failure and ventilatory failure?
Respiratory failure= failure to oxygenate properly leading to hypoxemia
Ventilatory failure= failure of the ventilatory pump mechanism leading to hypoxemia
Why do patients become hypoxic?
Hypoventilation and/or ventilation perfusion mismatch
How can you distinguish between type 1 and type 2 respiratory failure?
What are different causes of ventilatory failures?
Control failure (e.g. drug overdose effecting brain commands)
Peripheral mechanism failure- nerves, muscles, chest cannot move (scoliosis) or gas cannot get in or out (asthma)
What is type II respiratory failure?
There is a decrease in oxygen and an increase in CO2. Common causes are severe COPD, acute asthma and pulmonary oedema.
Uses due to hypoventilation
To treat, give the patient oxygen and treat the underlying cause to reverse hypoventilation
What causes ventilation-perfusion mismatch?
Lung diseases effecting the airways, lung infections such as pneumonia, bronchial narrowing (COPD/asthma) or acute lung injury
What happens to arterial CO2 in V/Q mismatch?
V/Q mimatch in one area of the lung will cause low O2 and high CO2 levels.
The high CO2 levels will increase ventilation in other areas of the lung with normal V/Q.
The increased ventilation rate allows more CO2 to leave, which means oxygen is not being taken up in this area.
This causes normal levels of CO2 but low levels of O2.
How does pulmonary embolism cause V/Q mismatch?
Emboli create areas of dead space where there is ventilation but no perfusion causing hypoxia.
How does asthma cause respiratory failure?
Bronchospasm, hyperventilation and mucous plugging causes ventilation defects and V/Q mismatch.
This causes type 2 respiratory failure.
How does COPD cause respiratory failure?
COPD is a mixture of chronic airway inflammation and narrowing as well as emphysema.
Causes hypoventilation and V/Q mismatch
Patients may have type 1 or type 2 respiratory failure.
How do you measure haemoglobin saturation?
Uses a pulseometer which can be placed on a finger. It uses absorption spectroscopy.
Easy to do at home, but assumes Hb levels are normal and nail polish effects results.
Where are arterial blood gases taken from?
The radial artery, but sometimes the femoral/ brachial artery.
What is measured in arterial blood gases?
- PaO2
- PaCO2
- Hydrogen ion concentration
- Bicarbonate concentration
- Sometimes electrolytes
- Sometimes Hb levels
- Carboyhaemoglobin (amount of Hb bound to CO to detect CO poisoning)
- Base excess
*
What does an increase in blood CO2 lead to?
Acidosis
What happens in CO poisoning?
Co binds to Hb in the place of oxygen to form carboxyhaemoglobin. Can cause death by asphyxia
What causes type 2 respiratory failure?
Low oxygen levels due to hypoventilation of lungs. High CO2 due to increased levels in alveolar space and less being removed from blood
What are the two types of acidosis and what causes them?
Respiratory acidosis= H+ is increased by an increase in PaCO2
Metabolic acidosis= H+ is increased by an increase in acid production or a decrease in excretion.
What will arterial blood gases look like for someone with acute type 2 respiratory failure?
ACUTE= have low O2, high CO2, high H+ and normal bicarbonate levels
What will arterial blood gases look like for someone with chronic type 2 respiratory failure?
Have low O2, high CO2, normal H+ but higher bicarbonate
This is becuase the acidosis has been controlled by metabolic compensation, where there is increased bicarbonate retention by the kidney.
Why should high concentration oxygen not be given to COPD patients?
They have chronic type 2 failure and are dependant on hypoxia to stimulate breathing.
Chronic high CO2 no longer stimulates breathing, so a suddent increase in PO2 with oxygen therapy can worsen hypoventilation
What are the ABG results of respiratory alkalosis and what causes it?
Caused by hyperventilation
Respiratory alkalosis is not associated with respiratory failure
Normal PO2, low PCO2, low H+, normal bicarbonate
What is metabolic acidosis?
Excess acid production by the body, e.g. diabetic ketoacidosis.
What is a classical clinical sign of acidosis?
Kussmal breathing (deep, rapid breathing pattern)
It is a compensatory mechanism to increase CO2 removal
What are the ABG results of metabolic acidosis?
PO2 levels normal
PCO2 levels are low
H+ level is high
Bicarbondate level low
What is the CO2 and Bicarbonate equasion?
What decreases and increases bicarbonate in the body?
HCO3 is increased by an increase in pCO2
HCO3 is decreased by an increase in acid production or decrease in excretion
Why are there two measures of bicarbonate?
Actual and standard
Acutual= calculated with actual H+ and pCO2
Standard= actual H+ and A NORMAL pCO2 level, show will show the metabolic effects
What is base excess?
The amount of base needed to be removed from a litre of blood at a normal pCO2 level in order to bring the H+ back to normal
A negative value indictaed metabolic acidosis
How do you interpret CO2 and H+ of blood gases?
Normal or low CO2= type 1 respiratory failure
High CO2= type 2 respiratory failure
High H+= acidosis
Low H+= alkalosis
How are the upper airways protected against pathogens?
Colonisation
Swallowing- into stomach acid
Lung anatomy- mucus and ciliated epithelium, cough reflex
Immune system
What are the most common viruses that cause respiratory tract infections?
Rhinovirus (common cold), influenza A or coronavirua
What are the symptoms of flu?
Temperature, headache, weakness, cough
What are the usual symptoms of pharyngitis?
Sore throat
Tender glands in neck
Large tonsils somtimes with exudate
Tender anterior cervical lympth nodes
What are the usual causes of pharyngitis?
Caused by virus or occasionally bacteria
If there is exudate on the tonsils hints to bacterial infection
What are the clinical symptoms of sinusitis?
Unilateral face pain (into ears and teeth)
Purulent nasal discharge
Fever
What are the symptoms of acute epiglottitis?
Sore throat and pain on swallowing
High pitched wheezing noise when breathing in (inspiratory stridor)
Fatigue
What are the symptoms of laryngo-tracheobronchitis?
A disease most common 3 months- 3 years
Barking cough and inspiratory stridor (high pitched wheezing noise)
What are the issues with premature babies and respiratory infections?
Babies born premature might not get sufficient trasfer of antibody from their mother.
What is bronchiolitis?
Inflammation of the bronchioles
What are the clinical features of bronchitis?
Cough- may be productive or not
Wheeze
May have fever but no systemic features of infection
What are the complications of bronchitis?
May cause acute exacerbations of COPD or asthma
What is the treatment for bronchitis?
Uusally none if viral, sometimes antimicrobials
Manage exacerbations of COPD/asthma with steroids and increased inhalers
What are the symptoms of bronchieactasis?
Have a chronic cough
Excessive sputum production
Recurrent pneumonia and weight loss
May develop clubbing and have chronuc crackles
What does this x-ray suggest
Dullness suggests inflammation
Pneumonia maybe
What are the most common causes of pneumonia?
Viruses (10%)
Streptococcus pneumoniae (40%)
Mycoplasma pneumoniae (10%)
Chlamdophila pneumoniae (10%)
What people are more at risk of developing pneumonia?
Infants, elderly, COPD, immunocompromised, patients with impaired swallow reflex, diabetes, alcoholics, drug users and congestive heart disease
What are the differences in the common types of pneumonia?
S. pneumoniae= extremes of ages, can be severely ill with respiratory failure
Mycoplasma pneumoniae= usually younger adult, mild illness
Chlamydophila pneumoniae= older age groups, prolonged wheezing
What is the treatment for pneumonia?
Has to be prompt and with antimicrobials
For mild give amoxicillin
For severe upto 10 days of intravenous antimicrobials
What is empyema?
Collection of pus in the pleural space
What are the clinical features of tuberculosis?
Cough, haemoptysis, breathlessness
Weight loss, fever and night sweats
Swollen lymph nodes
What suggests a patient has TB?
- Symptoms
- Upper lobe disease with cavities
- Pleural disease
- Multiple tiny nodules (growth of abnormal tissues
- Failure to resolve with antibiotics
How do you treat tuberculosis?
Have to treat with antimicrobials for 6 months or longer
Why are the smaller airways more prone to collapse?
They have no cartilage
What is the NANC nervous system?
Non‐adrenergic non‐cholinergic (NANC) transmission/mediators describes a part of the autonomic nervous system which does not use acetylcholine or noradrenaline as transmitters.
What factors of the autonomic nervous system can cause bronchoconstriction and bronchodilation of the airways?
Acetylcholine from vagus nerve acts on muscarinic receptors in the airway’s smooth muscle to cause constriction
Beta agonists in circulation on beta adrenergic receptors (e.g. adrenaline causes dilitation)
What NANC factors cause bronchodilitation and constriction?
Nitric oxide and Vastoactive internal peptide (VIP)= constriction
Neurokinins and substance P= dilation
What are asthma and COPD associated with?
Asthma tends to be more of an allergenic disease and is associated with the inflammatory cell known as the eosinophil- also associated with smooth muscle cell problems/hypertrophy. COPD is a disease generally caused my smoking and is associated with acutely aggressive immune cells such as neutrophils which can release proteases with causes lung destruction.