Some Specific Diseases Associated with Respiratory Failure

Some Specific Diseases Associated with Respiratory Failure 

The mechanisms leading to alteration in respiratory timing in patients with COPD have not yet been clearly defined. In line with the concept that the perception of inspiratory 

In patients with kyphoscoliosis the severity is quantified by measuring the angle between the upper and lower portions of the spinal curve (Cobb angle). When this angle exceeds 100° (severe scoliosis), the vital capacity falls below 50% of the predicted value (48). A major factor in the pathophysiology of chronic respiratory failure in patients with kyphoscoliosis is the decrease in the compliance of the chest wall and limgs (49,50). In severe scoliosis the compliance of the chest wall may be about 25% of the predicted value. 

Roussos C. Ventilatory failure and respiratory muscles. In Roussos C, Macklem PT, eds. The Thorax. New York Marcel Dekker, 1985 884-888. 

Roussos C, Koutsoukou A. Respiratory failure. Eur Respir J 2003 22(suppl 47) 3S-14S. 

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IV. Some Specific Diseases Associated with Respiratory Failure... 

Death. No deaths in humans specifically associated with plutonium have been reported following acute plutonium exposure. Epidemiological studies of occupational cohorts did not report any increases in deaths due to nonmalignant diseases. However, the highest radiation levels reported in workers were 100- to 1,000-fold lower than the radiation levels that resulted in death (due to respiratory failure) in some laboratory animals. Acute exposures to high levels of plutonium isotopes, administered as dioxides, citrate, or nitrates, were fatal to several laboratory species when exposure occurred by the inhalation, oral, or injection routes. Survival time was radiation dose-related for all of these routes of exposure. By the inhalation route in animals, nonmalignant respiratory disease was characterized by radiation pneumonitis, pulmonary fibrosis, alveolar edema, and occasionally hyperplasia and metaplasia with death occurring within weeks or months of the initial exposure to... 

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