Topic
Lungs and breathing
How lung conditions are tested and managed, from spirometry to screening, read on the evidence.
This page collects every article by Dr. Damon Tojjar in this topic. For all topics see browse by topic, and for the source-anchored record see damontojjar.com/record.
Articles in this topic (20)
- Did Triple Inhaler Therapy Really Lower COPD Deaths?
Two large trials, IMPACT and ETHOS, each reported that single-inhaler triple therapy lowered all-cause mortality in COPD, and inside those trials as they were...
- Do Inhaled Steroids Help Every COPD Patient? What Blood Eosinophils Predict
No. Inhaled corticosteroids do not help every person with COPD, and the job of the blood eosinophil count is to separate the patients likely to benefit from those...
- What the Evidence Says About Pulmonary Rehabilitation for COPD
The short answerPulmonary rehabilitation is one of the most reliably effective interventions in respiratory medicine, and the evidence behind it is unusually...
- Does Treating Sleep Apnea Prevent Heart Attacks?
The strongest randomized evidence we have does not show that treating obstructive sleep apnea with CPAP prevents heart attacks. In the SAVE trial, published in the...
- The 0.70 Cutoff in COPD Diagnosis: Fixed Ratio Versus Lower Limit of Normal
When one number decides who has COPDGOLD keeps a fixed post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC below 0.70 as the spirometric definition of chronic obstructive pulmonary...
- Home Oxygen for COPD: What the Trials Actually Show
Home oxygen extends survival in COPD only for one well-defined group: people whose blood oxygen is severely low at rest. Two trials from around 1980, the American...
- How Biomarkers Pick a Biologic for Severe Asthma
Choosing a biologic for severe asthma starts with three blood and breath tests, not with the drug's brand. Blood eosinophils, fractional exhaled nitric oxide...
- How Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Is Diagnosed and Slowed
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is diagnosed by matching the clinical picture against a specific pattern of lung scarring called usual interstitial pneumonia...
- How Researchers Define a Moving Target Called Long COVID
Two influential efforts now define Long COVID, and they were built for different jobs. In 2024 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)...
- How the Evidence Separates COPD From Asthma
No single test does the jobNo single test cleanly separates chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from asthma. The distinction is assembled from three streams of...
- Why Reference Equations for Lung Function Are Dropping Race
Major societies are replacing race-specific spirometry equations with a single race-neutral standard called GLI Global, because race is a social category rather...
- What the Apnea Hypopnea Index Does and Does Not Tell You
The number, and its limitsThe apnea hypopnea index (AHI) counts how often per hour of sleep your breathing stops or partly collapses, and it is the number that...
- What the DLCO Test Reveals About Gas Transfer
The DLCO test, the single-breath diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide, measures how efficiently gas moves from the air inside the alveoli into the red cells...
- What the FEV1/FVC Ratio Actually Measures on a Spirometry Report
The one number that sorts two different problemsThe FEV1/FVC ratio tells you what fraction of a full, forced breath you can push out in the first second. On a...
- What the Fleischner Rules Say About an Incidental Lung Nodule
An incidental lung nodule is a small spot found on a CT scan that was ordered for some other reason, and the 2017 Fleischner Society guidelines exist to answer one...
- What the Vaping Lung Injury Outbreak Taught Us About Causation
In 2019, thousands of mostly young people arrived in emergency rooms with a severe lung injury that had no name. Within months investigators had a prime suspect,...
- Who Should Be Tested for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency
Every adult with COPD, emphysema, or persistent airflow obstruction that does not fully reverse with a bronchodilator should be tested for alpha-1 antitrypsin...
- Why Pulse Oximeters Can Miss Low Oxygen in Darker Skin
Pulse oximeters can read falsely high in people with darker skin, and the gap matters most exactly when oxygen is running low. In a widely cited 2020 New England...
- Why Guidelines Stopped Recommending Reliever-Only Asthma Treatment
For decades, the first inhaler most people with mild asthma received was a short-acting reliever such as albuterol, taken alone whenever wheeze or breathlessness...
- Why Sleep Apnea Screening Got an I Statement
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) gave screening for obstructive sleep apnea in asymptomatic adults an "I statement" on November 15, 2022, which...