Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS): Current Understanding and Future Perspectives

This chapter resumes our current understanding of asthma–chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) overlap syndrome (ACOS), pretending to offer a comprehensive approach for the practicing physician, and provides some future perspectives on this entity

Effectiveness of Text Message Reminders on Adherence to Inhaled Therapy in Patients With Asthma : Prospective Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trial

Poor adherence to inhaled medication in asthma patients is of great concern. It is one of the main reasons for inadequate asthma control. The goal of the research was to determine if motivational messages using short message service (SMS, or text) improved adherence to inhaled medication in patients with asthma. A prospective multicenter randomized parallel-group clinical trial was conducted in 10 asthma clinics in Spain. Adherence was assessed with electronic monitors (Smartinhaler, Adherium Ltd) connected to inhalers. Patients in the SMS group received psychologist-developed motivational messages every 3 days for 6 months. There were 53 patients in the SMS group and 88 patients in the control group. After 6 months, mean electronic adherence was 70% (SD 17%) in the intervention group and 69% (SD 17%) in the control group (P =.82). Significant differences between the study groups in morning and evening adherence to inhaled therapy, asthma control, exhaled nitric oxide levels, or improvement of lung functions were not observed. Motivational messages were not useful to improve adherence to inhaled asthma medication compared with usual care

Validation of the ‘Test of the Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI) for Asthma and COPD Patients

Background: To validate the ‘Test of Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI), a 12-item questionnaire designed to assess the adherence to inhalers in patients with COPD or asthma. Methods: A total of 1009 patients with asthma or COPD participated in a cross-sectional multicenter study. Patients with electronic adherence ≥80% were defined as adherents. Construct validity, internal validity, and criterion validity were evaluated. Self-reported adherence was compared with the Morisky-Green questionnaire. Results: Factor analysis study demonstrated two factors, factor 1 was coincident with TAI patient domain (items 1 to 10) and factor 2 with TAI health-care professional domain (items 11 and 12). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.860 and the test-retest reliability 0.883. TAI scores correlated with electronic adherence (ρ=0.293, p=0.01). According to the best cut-off for 10 items (score 50, area under the ROC curve 0.7), 569 (62.5%) patients were classified as non-adherents. The non-adherence behavior pattern was: erratic 527 (57.9%), deliberate 375 (41.2%), and unwitting 242 (26.6%) patients. As compared to Morisky-Green test, TAI showed better psychometric properties. Conclusions: The TAI is a reliable and homogeneous questionnaire to identify easily non-adherence and to classify from a clinical perspective the barriers related to the use of inhalers in asthma and COPD

Mixed Th2 and non-Th2 inflammatory pattern in the asthma-COPD overlap : a network approach

Altres ajuts: The authors are grateful to all the patients who participated in the study. A number of investigators contributed to the study logistics and they are listed in the Supplementary materials. The project was endorsed by the COPD and Asthma Research Board (PII de EPOC y asma) of the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR).The asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) overlap (ACO) is a clinical condition that combines features of those two diseases, and that is difficult to define due to the lack of understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Determining systemic mediators may help clarify the nature of inflammation in patients with ACO. We aimed at investigating the role and interaction of common markers of systemic inflammation (IL-6, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-α), Th2-related markers (periostin, IL-5, and IL-13), and IL-17 in asthma, COPD, and ACO. This is a cross-sectional study of patients aged ≥40 years with a post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in the first second/forced vital capacity 10 pack-years in a patient with a previous diagnosis of asthma or by the presence of eosinophilia in a patient with a previous diagnosis of COPD. Clinical, functional, and inflammatory parameters were compared between categories using discriminant and network analysis. In total, 109 ACO, 89 COPD, and 94 asthma patients were included. Serum levels (median [interquartile range]) of IL-5 were higher in asthma patients than in COPD patients (2.09 [0.61-3.57] vs 1.11 [0.12-2.42] pg/mL, respectively; p =0.03), and IL-8 levels (median [interquartile range]) were higher in COPD patients than in asthma patients (9.45 [6.61-13.12] vs 7.03 [4.69-10.44] pg/mL, respectively; p <0.001). Their values in ACO were intermediate between those in asthma and in COPD. Principal component and network analysis showed a mixed inflammatory pattern in ACO in between asthma and COPD. IL-13 was the most connected node in the network, with different weights among the three conditions. Asthma and COPD are two different inflammatory conditions that may overlap in some patients, leading to a mixed inflammatory pattern. IL-13 could be central to the regulation of inflammation in these conditions

Asthma control conundrum in clinical practice - Data from a two-stage Delphi survey and literature review

Definitions and measures of asthma control used in clinical trials and practice often vary, as highlighted in the manuscript, "Is asthma control more than just an absence of symptoms? An expert consensus statement". Furthermore, the authors discussed differences between patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) in terms of understanding and managing asthma. Given these disparities, there is a need for consensus regarding what constitutes well-controlled asthma and, especially, how best it can be measured and recorded. In the current work, we describe our data and provide more detail on the methodology from a two-stage Delphi survey and a structured literature review, which were designed to reach a consensus definition of asthma control and alleviate misalignments between patients and HCPs. Survey data were collected using a two-stage Delphi technique; a method used to collate expert opinions over a series of sequential questionnaires to reach a consensus. The collated Delphi survey data were compared with results from a comprehensive, structured literature review of 216 publications, to assess if there was a correlation between existing guidance and measures of asthma control used in clinical trials and standard clinical practice. In order to collate and interpret findings from the Delphi survey, responses from 82 panelists (73 HCPs and 9 authors) were qualitatively analyzed, quantitatively categorized, and presented as percentages or counts in Excel databases, which are detailed in the current work. Searches conducted using PubMed and Cochrane identified 664 manuscripts, and Embase was used to identify 89 congress abstracts. After applying a stringent screening method using predefined key words, the structured literature review consisted of 185 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 31 congress abstracts, and assessed existing guidance and measures of asthma control used in clinical trials. In this publication, we provide further insight into the predefined keywords, search strings, and strategy applied to identify manuscripts and congress abstracts for inclusion/exclusion, and detail methods for data extraction. Together, the data from the Delphi survey and structured literature review aimed to provide greater insights into challenges and approaches in achieving asthma control in clinical practice, with the potential for results to be used to guide a universally accepted definition and measure of asthma control that can be used and understood by patients, HCPs, and researchers. Qualitative and quantitative methodology and analysis from the Delphi survey and literature review search strategy can potentially be used to identify disparities and explore expert opinion and relevant literature in other therapeutic areas to guide a consensus where disparities exist

A Proposed Approach to Chronic Airway Disease (CAD) Using Therapeutic Goals and Treatable Traits: A Look to the Future

© 2020 Pérez de Llano et al.Chronic airflow obstruction affects a wide range of airway diseases, the most frequent of which are asthma, COPD, and bronchiectasis; they are clearly identifiable in their extremes, but quite frequently overlap in some of their pathophysiological and clinical characteristics. This has generated the description of new mixed or overlapping disease phenotypes with no clear biological grounds. In this special article, a group of experts provides their perspective and proposes approaching the treatment of chronic airway disease (CAD) through the identification of a series of therapeutic goals (TG) linked to treatable traits (TT) – understood as clinical, physiological, or biological characteristics that are quantifiable using biomarkers. This therapeutic approach needs validating in a clinical trial with the strategy of identification of TG and treatment according to TT for each patient independently of their prior diagnosis

The Response to Biologics is Better in Patients with Severe Asthma Than in Patients with Asthma–COPD Overlap Syndrome

Although biologics have demonstrated to be effective in T2-high asthma patients, there is little experience with these drugs in asthma-COPD overlap (ACO). The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of biologics in these two conditions. We included 318 patients (24 ACO and 297 asthma) treated with monoclonal antibodies and followed for at least 12 months Omalizumab was the most frequently employed biologic agent both in patients with ACO and asthma. Asthma control test (ACT) scores after at least 12 months of biologic therapy were not significantly different between groups. The percentage of patients with >= 1 exacerbation and >= 1 corticosteroid burst was significantly higher in ACO patients (70.8 vs 27.3 and 83.3% vs 37.5%, respectively), whereas the percentage of controlled patients (with no exacerbations, no need for corticosteroids and ACT >= 20) was significantly lower (16.7% vs 39.7%). In conclusion, this report suggests that patients with ACO treated with biologics reach worse outcomes than asthma patients

Perspectivas actuales de las fuentes del Derecho

Presentación / Rafael de Asís Roig. - Fuentes del Derecho y comunidad civil / Dionisio Llamazares Fernández. - Las fuentes del derecho y su problemática actual / Antonio Enrique Pérez Luño. - Fuentes del Derecho y sociedad civil : la participación de ésta en la creación normativa, desde la perspectiva del ordenamiento jurídico internacional / Montserrat Abad Castelos. - La tutela de la libertad religiosa en la Unión Europea y su incidencia en el ordenamiento interno español / Adoración Castro Jover. - Sistema normativo de la Unión Europea (naturaleza de las fuentes) / Carlos Moreiro González. - La incidencia de la Unión Europea en el sistema interno de fuentes de los Estados miembros / Ana Garriga Domínguez. - Las fuentes del Derecho Islámico / Mario Losano. - Multiculturalidad, Derecho islámico y ordenamiento secular; los supuestos de la poligamia y el repudio / Agustín Motilla de la Calle. - Interculturalidad y fuentes del Derecho : algunas reflexiones desde el Derecho Internacional / Carlos Fernández Liesa . - La definitiva secularización de la legislación sobre la interrupción del embarazo en España / Daniel Capodiferro Cubero. - Interculturalidade e Fontes do Direito. - A ética da racionalidade do outro como princípio e critério objetivo na análise da interculturalidade e sua relação quanto à legitimação das fontes do direito / Artur César de Souza. - El papel de los nuevos movimientos sociales en la regulación jurídica de la globalización / Jose Antonio García Saez. - Relaciones entre ordenamientos jurídicos en el ámbito de la Unión Europea / Cristina Hermida del LLano. - La incidencia «interesada» de la Directiva 2003/86/CE en la última reforma de la Ley de extranjería española / Encarnación La Spina. - La lex mercatoria : una excepción a la legitimidad del orden jurídico-político moderno / Francisco López Ruiz. - Un paralelismo entre las teorías de los principios y la jurisprudencia de conceptos: la ruptura del puente entre las fuentes del Derecho y la sociedad civil / Luis Lloredo Alix. - La configuración de un derecho cultural sobre lo religioso como una propuesta para la plena integración de las personas de origen musulman residentes en Europa / Andrés Murcia González. - Sobre algunas concepciones de la jurisprudencia en la cultura jurídica norteamericana / Oscar Pérez de la Fuent

Hospital Epidemics Tracker (HEpiTracker): Description and pilot study of a mobile app to track COVID-19 in hospital workers

Background: Hospital workers have been the most frequently and severely affected professional group during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have a big impact on transmission. In this context, innovative tools are required to measure the symptoms compatible with COVID-19, the spread of infection, and testing capabilities within hospitals in real time. Objective: We aimed to develop and test an effective and user-friendly tool to identify and track symptoms compatible with COVID-19 in hospital workers. Methods: We developed and pilot tested Hospital Epidemics Tracker (HEpiTracker), a newly designed app to track the spread of COVID-19 among hospital workers. Hospital staff in 9 hospital centers across 5 Spanish regions (Andalusia, Balearics, Catalonia, Galicia, and Madrid) were invited to download the app on their phones and to register their daily body temperature, COVID-19-compatible symptoms, and general health score, as well as any polymerase chain reaction and serological test results. Results: A total of 477 hospital staff participated in the study between April 8 and June 2, 2020. Of note, both health-related (n=329) and non-health-related (n=148) professionals participated in the study; over two-thirds of participants (68.8%) were health workers (43.4% physicians and 25.4% nurses), while the proportion of non-health-related workers by center ranged from 40% to 85%. Most participants were female (n=323, 67.5%), with a mean age of 45.4 years (SD 10.6). Regarding smoking habits, 13.0% and 34.2% of participants were current or former smokers, respectively. The daily reporting of symptoms was highly variable across participating hospitals; although we observed a decline in adherence after an initial participation peak in some hospitals, other sites were characterized by low participation rates throughout the study period. Conclusions: HEpiTracker is an already available tool to monitor COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in hospital workers. This tool has already been tested in real conditions. HEpiTracker is available in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. It has the potential to become a customized asset to be used in future COVID-19 pandemic waves and other environments

El derecho de acceso a la información pública: Actas del Seminario Internacional Complutense, Madrid, 27-28 junio 2007

Sección Deptal. de Derecho Constitucional (Ciencias de la Información)Fac. de Ciencias de la InformaciónTRUEpu