Talk:Emphysema

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An explanation with more common terms would be appreciated. The medical terms and sentence structure make it difficult for an undereducated individual, like myself, to learn about the disease especially when suffering.174.17.206.161 (talk)
 * Sadly, this is a very typical problem with most, if not all, Wikipedia articles dealing with scientific or technical topics. Captain Quirk (talk) 09:43, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Work needed on article
The second paragraph needs work. I'm not sure what the second sentence is trying to say. --Jose Ramos 13:07, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I just looked up the wiki on Finger clubbing, and it distinctly states that clubbing is NOT a symptom of a COPD, but may be a symptom of lung cancer. I don't know which is true, but this is obviously inconsistent and needs to be cleared up. - Jason Brown 04:32, 19 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angryredplanet (talk • contribs)

Blue bloaters vs. pink puffers
Emphysema sufferers are not blue bloaters. Blue bloaters describes another chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, chronic bronchitis. Emphysema sufferers are called "pink puffers". That is they hyperventilate. Alternatively, because they hyperventilate, emphysema sufferers are able to maintain adequate blood pH levels: they are not cyanotic, which would suggest a low blood oxygen level. In bronchitis, there is a disproportionate loss of perfusion versus ventilation (ie. blood passing through the capillaries surround an alveolus which has no air supply due to a blocked bronchiole, will shunt into the pulmonary veins without picking up oxygen.) so even if people with bronchitis hyperventilate (up their tidal volume by breathing more) they will be unable to maintain adequate blood oxygen levels; so people with bronchitis, and not emphysema, will appear cyanotic. This is where the term "blue bloaters" comes from. "Pink puffers" and "blue older bloaters" are not deregatory terms, but are actually mnemonics. They help physicians tell the emphysema apart from bronchitis. It should also be noted that a patient can (and often does) suffer from both emphysema and bronchitis. Both conditions are initiated by an inflammatory response due to some sort of irritating or damaging substance enterying the conducting pathways and/or alveoli (ie. cigarette smoke, pollution, etc) Cigarette smoke paralyzes the action of cilia prevent the removal bacteria or other debris which may have been trapped in the airway. Trapped bacteria, can multiply within the conducting airways, and start an infection. Multiple infections lead to thicking of the tissue in the conducting pathways as well as secretion of excess mucus. These physiological responses can "plug" up airways (usually bronchioles) leading to bronchitis. In emphysema, constant inflammation results in destructive molecules being released within the alveoli. These molecules can damage the alveoli, causing the supporting structures of the alveoli to break down (including capillaries). This break down results in large, distended alveolus, that have a smaller surface area, and a weaker ability to take up oxygen from the lungs.


 * Well, if you think so you may edit the article accordingly!

JFW | T@lk 07:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In chronic bronchitis true shunting as decribed above is unusual. Although sufferers of chronic bronchitis do have areas with low V/Q ratios the perfusion is maintained and a portion of air is oxygenated. Shunted blood does not make contact with inspired air and even supplemental O2 will not effect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by BayAreaNP (talk • contribs) 07:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

POV
I excised the following paragraph. Someone with a medical background should take a lot at it and see if any material from it is salvagable.Zantastik 21:52, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Given the complex nature of the composition of tobacco smoke, the poor correlation between existing animal models used in research and humans, complex nature of the proteolytic/antiproteolytic properties in the body, various other substances that may be involved (e.g., oxidants), together with differences in potential routes to disease development between different individuals, it may prove to be simpler and more logical to convince smokers to cut down rather than attempting to deduce the pathogenesis of this man-made disease of little biological scientific relevance, as opposed to continuing to pour money into more scientifically inane research that hasn't progressed significantly in the past fifty years into this perfectly preventable disease. This of course aside from the fact that even if the pathogenesis were deduced, to be able to treat the underlying cause with whatever barely effective yet expensive IV injection or inhalant treatment is concocted in the future, may not prove to be practical or worthwhile.

Types of Emphysema
There's no mention of Centrilobar, Panlobar or Septal emphysema in this article. What's that all about...?

Rutigor


 * Be bold and put it in. If you know the terminology then you probably know the relevance of each. JFW | T@lk  08:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Vitamin A - possible reversal of disease
Ok, guys, put this in your pipe and smoke it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3329103.stm A study in the European Respiritory Journal shows that increased vitamin A consumption can return elasticity to alveoli in emphysemic mice. It may not be so "irreversible" after all. On the one hand, I don't want to justify smoking (I just quit myself). But on the other hand, if there there is any treatment that's even possibly effective, it should be posted. So I'm going to do that.


 * If that has not been replicated in humans I wouldn't attach too much importance to it. Well done for quitting - it's the most important thing you could have done for your own & others' health. JFW | T@lk  07:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC) Here is a more up to date url about how they found and cured emphysema with vitamin a on rats. http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9705/27/emphysema/

Yes, and bravo for quitting! Thank you for the input, and with everything typed, everything has been agreed, at least by me. lizardfreak96 (talk)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lizardfreak96 (talk • contribs) 17:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds great! Glad you quit. Not starting, however, is the best method of prevention by far. Smoking is going the way of the Dinosaurs and I can't wait until it becomes illegal someday. I smoked for almost 8 years now and completely regret doing so. While I don't have any immediate life-threatening conditions, I do wish I had never began smoking as there is nothing to gain from it. There's no gain but there's plenty to lose. One of the worst things a person can do is to choose to learn for themselves through experience (by smoking) rather than observing others and the mistakes they've already made. --Ulterion (talk) 01:27, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

___________________

This article on the retinoids was in 2006. http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/130/5/1334.full

Takima (talk) 21:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Accutane (13-cis-retinoic acid)
There is at least one curative therapy on the horizon, 13-cis-retinoic acid (accutane). 10-15% of the pop have predisposing genetic/enzymic problems. WblakesxWblakesx

Autoimmune process
suggests that in tobacco-induced emphysema there is autoimmune anti-elastin activity. JFW | T@lk  07:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Notable cases section
I saw a section titled "notable cases" on the Alzheimer's article and decided to add one here. I am an emphysema patient and have taken an interest in Johnny Carson and Dick York's lives as inspiration of what I can still do before this takes me out. It is my hope that this section will do the same for others. I added ages at death, as well, to give other patients a better sense of the mortality of the disease. I find it comforting that the average age seems to be up in the mid-60's, even though I'm one of the youngest sufferers my doctors have ever heard of.

`Jessica Caroline Lunn'
Removed Jessica Caroline Lunn from "notable cases". A Google search on the name only brought up 4 listings, two of which were this Wikipedia article. 68.62.15.243 13:22, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's since been restored, so I removed it again. Very odd - the only other references to someone of this name are on other wiki-type sites that typically use Wikipedia as their source. Also, the reference provided after her name led to an unrelated article about Amy Winehouse suffering from emphysema. Ravenclaw (talk) 12:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Added to Notable Cases section
Ike Turner Zeroxysm (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Review on mechanism
Molecular pathophysiology JFW |  T@lk  11:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Cigarette stains?

 * "Many sufferers whose emphysema was caused by cigarette smoke have cigarette stains on the fingers."

This is not a symptom of emphysema. Tar stains wash off over time, surely? It's not relevant to the article: smokers who develop emphysema and then quit smoking will not have tar stains on their fingers. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 04:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Another "Cause" to consider for the Pathophysiology section
I think the article would be improved with some expansion to the section on Pathophysiology. The serpinopathy section of another article claims that "Well characterised serpinopathies include emphysema, cirrhosis, thrombosis and dementia." and provides a citation. I suspect there may be other causes as well, but was surprised to find this article mentioning nothing on it at all about the serpin connection that has apparently now been established.N2e (talk) 19:08, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The serpinopathy article actually says that it only applies to A1AD emphysema. 174.252.243.214 (talk) 06:22, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistency?
This emphysema article lists finger clubbing as a symptom, but the linked finger clubbing article notes that finger clubbing is not caused by COPDs (of which emphysema is one--according to this article).

I'm no expert, so I don't know which page needs a correction.

Barry (talk) 13:16, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

X-ray caption needed
To the untrained eye (that's me, and most other WP readers), the X-ray is uninformative. Could someone appropriately trained point out the features of the image that confirm the diagnosis? Cheers freestyle-69 (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I endorse the above. What is the arrow pointing to? CowardX10 (talk) 17:00, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Lung stem cells; York and Carson
If anyone would like to take the time to work it into the article, the discovery of lung stem cells was announced on 7-11-11. The article can be found here: http://news.yahoo.com/discovery-lung-stem-cells-may-herald-treatments-210407141.html. I tried to post but some well meaning doctor reverted my edits and I'm really not looking to become a skilled Wikipedian tonight, as he seems to be asking.

Same goes for my attempt to add Dick York and Johnny Carson to the Notable Causes list. Reverted by the doc. Both of their Wikipedia articles mention death by emphysema. If you know your way around and can post these "the right way", please do. 174.252.246.3 (talk) 03:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is the paper on lung stem cells   The problem with new sources like yahoo news is that so much is just speculation. Have added Carson. There is no ref on the Wiki page for Dick.  Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 03:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

More good news for possible cure?
New study's findings on emphysema reversal — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fisiks (talk • contribs) 20:37, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Excerpt from Cell journal article:

"We provide evidence for a causative role of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and peroxynitrite in this context. Mice lacking iNOS were protected against emphysema and PH. Treatment of wild-type mice with the iNOS inhibitor N6-(1-iminoethyl)-L-lysine (L-NIL) prevented structural and functional alterations of both the lung vasculature and alveoli and also reversed established disease." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fisiks (talk • contribs) 20:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Merged to COPD
Based on the 2013 GOLD document and this 2012 Lancet review  emphysemia is simply a pathological finding in COPD. It is not a disease in and of itself. As the treatment, diagnosis and pathophysiology all overlap I have merged this article into COPD (which was much better referenced than this one). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:18, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It is indeed not a disease in and of itself, so I think it was a good thing to merge content from the previous version of this article into COPD. The term emphysema, however, has other implications than what is related to the lungs, so I now redirected the term to Pneumatosis. Still, I made sure that the first section of that article explains its relationship to COPD. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Content split
Page made from split of content on Pneumatosis page - Emphysema covers much more than that just related to COPD. On COPD page it is referred to without either its own section or detail.--Iztwoz (talk) 09:57, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Is emphysema a subtype of COPD or not?
In the article it currently states "emphysema is a major subtype of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)", and very shortly after that it states "Without COPD, the finding of emphysema on a CT lung scan still confers a higher mortality risk in tobacco smokers.", if emphysema is a subtype of COPD, how is emphysema without COPD possible? I'm confused Hammerfrog (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2022 (UTC)


 * As text says - when associated with limited airflow it is a subtype of COPD. And in Symptoms there is -  The shortness of breath caused by emphysema can increase over time and develop into chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Iztwoz (talk) 14:38, 7 April 2023 (UTC)