Population prevalence of asthma and its determinants based on European Community Respiratory Health Survey in the United Arab Emirates

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>No population study has explored the population distribution of adult asthma in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The objective is to estimate asthma prevalence in general population in UAE.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using standard European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) questionnaires and tools, this is a cross-sectional assessment of a random sample of the population in established quotas of the seven Emirates in the UAE. We surveyed 1,220 participants, of which 63.2% were male, and 20.1% were UAE Nationals, with a mean (SD) age of 32.9 (14.1) years.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Prevalence of individual respiratory symptoms from the ECRHS screening questionnaire in all participants were generally ranging 8 - 10%, while participants 20-44 years presented lower prevalence in all symptoms (<it>p </it>< 0.05). The expected male:female ratio of reported wheezing and asthma attacks and its treatment by age was not observed. Participating women reported more individual symptoms than men. Overall, there were 15.4% (95% C.I. 13.5 - 17.5) participants who fulfilled our screening criteria for asthma, while for consistency with ECRHS, there were 12.1% (95% C.I. 10.4 - 14.1) participants who fulfilled the ECRHS asthma definition, being 9.8% (95% C.I. 7.8 - 12.2) of those 20-44 years, that is 8.6% of male and 11.8% of female young adults participating.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We conclude that asthma is common in the UAE, and gender differences are not observed in reported asthma symptoms in young adults. This being the first population based study exploring the prevalence of asthma and its determinants in the United Arab Emirates based on the ECRHS.</p

Joint statement for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Middle East-North Africa region, 2017 [Corrigendum]

Mahboub BH, Vats MG, Al Zaabi A, Iqbal MN, Safwat T,&nbsp;Al-Hurish F, Miravitlles M, Singh D, Asad K, Zeineldine S,&nbsp;Al-Hajjaj MS. Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2017;12:2869&ndash;2890.Page 2885, Disclosure, the text &ldquo;The authors report no&nbsp;conflicts of interest in this work&rdquo; should read &ldquo;BHM has&nbsp;a pending patent for Samsum sublingual immunotherapy&nbsp;with the US Patent and Trademark Office. MM has received&nbsp;speaker fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Cipla,Menarini, Rovi, Bial, CSL Behring, Grifols and Novartis;&nbsp;consultancy fees from Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi,&nbsp;GlaxoSmithKline, Bial, Gebro Pharma, CSL Behring,&nbsp;Laboratories Esteve, Mereo BioPharm, Verona Pharma,&nbsp;pH Pharma, Novartis and Grifols; and research grants from&nbsp;GlaxoSmithKline and Grifols. DS has received speaking/consultancy fees from Apellis, AstraZeneca, Boehringer&nbsp;Ingelheim, Chiesi, Cipla, Genentech, Glenmark, Merck,&nbsp;Mundipharma, Novartis, Peptinnovate, Pfizer, Pulmatrix,&nbsp;Skyepharma, Therevance and Verona; and research grants&nbsp;from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, Glenmark,&nbsp;Merck, Mundipharma, Novartis, Pfizer, Pulmatrix, Teva,&nbsp;Therevance and Verona. The authors report no other conflicts&nbsp;of interest in this work&rdquo;.Read the original articl

Joint statement for the diagnosis, management, and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Middle East&ndash;North Africa region, 2017

Bassam H Mahboub,1,2 Mayank Gian Vats,2 Ashraf Al Zaabi,3 Mohammed Nizam Iqbal,2 Tarek Safwat,4 Fatma Al-Hurish,5 Marc Miravitlles,6 Dave Singh,7 Khaled Asad,8 Salah Zeineldine,9,10 Mohamed S&nbsp;Al Hajjaj11College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, 2Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Rashid Hospital, Dubai Health Authority, Dubai, 3Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Zayed Military Hospital, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; 4Chest Department, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt; 5Department of Pulmonology and Allergy, Al-Sabah Hospital, Kuwait City, Kuwait; 6Department of Pneumology, Hospital Universitari Vall d&rsquo;Hebron, Barcelona, Spain; 7Centre for Respiratory Medicine and Allergy, University of Manchester, University Hospital of South Manchester, Manchester, UK; 8Pulmonary and Critical Care, Istishari Hospital, Amman, Jordan; 9Faculty of Medicine, 10Hariri School of Nursing, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Abstract: Smoking and subsequent development of COPD is an ever-increasing epidemic in Arabian Gulf and Middle East countries, with no signs of decline. The important fact to be highlighted is that this COPD epidemic of increasing incidence and prevalence is mostly unrecognized by patients, due to the common attribution of symptoms to &ldquo;smoker&rsquo;s cough&rdquo;, and the underdiagnosis and undertreatment by physicians because the common signs and symptoms masquerade as asthma. Consequently, there are long-term adverse effects of missing the diagnosis. The&nbsp;purpose of this review article is to focus upon the status of COPD in Arabian Gulf and Middle East countries, stressing the increasing burden of smoking and COPD, to emphasize the specific factors leading to rise in prevalence of COPD, to bring to light the underdiagnosis and undermanagement of COPD, and to treat COPD in conformity with standard guidelines with local and regional modifications. This review ends with suggestions and recommendations to the health department to formulate policies and to generate awareness among the general public about the side effects of smoking and consequences of COPD. Keywords: COPD, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Middle East, prevalence of smoking, water pipe, shisha, medwakh, bakhou

Clinical Application of Stem/Stromal Cells in COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive life-threatening disease that is significantly increasing in prevalence and is predicted to become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2030. At present, there are no true curative treatments that can stop the progression of the disease, and new therapeutic strategies are desperately needed. Advances in cell-based therapies provide a platform for the development of new therapeutic approaches in severe lung diseases such as COPD. At present, a lot of focus is on mesenchymal stem (stromal) cell (MSC)-based therapies, mainly due to their immunomodulatory properties. Despite increasing number of preclinical studies demonstrating that systemic MSC administration can prevent or treat experimental COPD and emphysema, clinical studies have not been able to reproduce the preclinical results and to date no efficacy or significantly improved lung function or quality of life has been observed in COPD patients. Importantly, the completed appropriately conducted clinical trials uniformly demonstrate that MSC treatment in COPD patients is well tolerated and no toxicities have been observed. All clinical trials performed so far, have been phase I/II studies, underpowered for the detection of potential efficacy. There are several challenges ahead for this field such as standardized isolation and culture procedures to obtain a cell product with high quality and reproducibility, administration strategies, improvement of methods to measure outcomes, and development of potency assays. Moreover, COPD is a complex pathology with a diverse spectrum of clinical phenotypes, and therefore it is essential to develop methods to select the subpopulation of patients that is most likely to potentially respond to MSC administration. In this chapter, we will discuss the current state of the art of MSC-based cell therapy for COPD and the hurdles that need to be overcome