Several therapeutic modalities are currently availa­ble for malignant airway occlusion. These include external beam radiation, laser therapy, and en­dobronchial radiation. To our knowledge, no ran­domized study has evaluated these modalities pro­spectively. Although laser therapy achieves immediate airway recanalization, the duration of response is unlikely to be long, as considerable endobronchial as well as extrabronchial tumor [...]

Thirty-three patients showed at least a one-level improvement in PS, 17 remained unchanged, and five showed at least a one-level deterioration one month following EBRT (Table 1A). A total of 166 symptoms were present prior to therapy; 131 of these resolved or improved, 20 remained unchanged, and 15 wors­ened (Table 1С). When measured as an [...]

With more than 150,000 cases every year, lung cancer represents today s major oncologic chal­lenge. There are more than 120,000 deaths annually and most therapeutic approaches result in a high incidence of local failure that frequently manifests as malignant airway occlusion. According to one esti­mate, 20 to 30 percent of newly diagnosed lung malignant neoplasms [...]

The data reported in this study do not support the notion of a strong relationship between hypoxemia per se and an objective measure of EDS in a group of patients with chronic daytime and nocturnal hypoxe­mia. Taken together, this group of patients with COPD did not reveal any evidence of subjective or objective EDS as [...]

Table 1 presents a comparison of the age, weight, and waking respiratory measures. Overall (n=14), there was no significant correlation between mean sleep onset latencies on the MSLT and waking Pa02 (- .13), PaC02 (.02), FEV, (.04), or mean spontaneous desaturation during sleep (.31). The mean sleep onset latencies were well within the published normal [...]

Fourteen male patients with stable COPD were randomly se­lected from the Chest Medicine Clinic at the Veterans Administra­tion Medical Center in Oklahoma City. Patients were selected without regard to the presence or absence of daytime sleepiness. The mean age was 60 years (range, 48 to 72 years). Patients were selected with a waking Pa02 of [...]