Respiratory Exchange

Dr. Humberto Choi, director of Cleveland Clinic’s Smoking Cessation Program, discusses ways for clinicians to be proactive and individualize treatment options to help people quit smoking. He also reviews electronic cigarettes, vaping and why they aren’t a safer alternative to smoking tobacco.

Dr. Elliot Dasenbrook, founder and director of the Cleveland Clinic Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program, discusses the formation of the multidisciplinary adult program. He covers past treatments and how the new modulators have made such a dramatic difference for patient care, including patients on the lung transplant waiting list. Dr. Dasenbrook also talks about how the need for transitional care, from pediatric to adult care, of the CF patient has become an imperative particularly as CF patients now live well into adulthood.

Liver disease presents a high burden, both on the society as well as healthcare system. Dr. Aanchal Kapoor, founder and director of the Medical Intensive Liver Unit (MILU), talks about the creation of this ICU Critical Care unit completely dedicated to the care of patients with severe liver disease. Dr. Kapoor discusses how this multidisciplinary unit works with staff from multiple areas including transplant hepatology, liver transplant surgery, physical therapy, dieticians, social workers, transplant coordinators and hepatology.

Dr. Daniel Culver, chairman of the Pulmonary Department in the Respiratory Institute at Cleveland Clinic, dives in to the topic of interstitial lung diseases, their diagnosis and management. He covers use of transbronchial cryobiopsy, the benefits of multidisciplinary discussion, and changes in the use of immunosuppressive and anti-fibrotic therapies. Dr. Culver talks about the need for identifying and taking care of comorbidities as a critical part of managing care of these patients, and offers some considerations on the future of diagnosis and therapies.

In the U.S. from March 2020 to June 2021, 147 lung transplants took place for COVID fibrosis or COVID ARDS. In this podcast, Dr. Kenneth McCurry and Dr. Marie Budev, surgical director and medical director, respectively, of the Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Cleveland Clinic discuss COVID-19, ARDS, fibrosis and the potential role of lung transplantation to treat those patients with advanced disease.

In this episode, Dr. Sumita Khatri, vice chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Respiratory Institute and director of the Asthma Center, discusses the multitude of factors that can impact a patient’s lung heath, including climate change, particle matter pollution, ozone, proximity to urban heat islands and traffic, as well as occupational influencers like farming and agricultural work. Dr. Khatri urges physicians to become more knowledgeable about these factors and their impact and make it part of the conversation with patients.

Sandra Hong, MD joins Respiratory Exchange to discuss oral immunotherapy (OIT) for food allergy. She reviews the life-changing success of patients who have undergone OIT via an established program, as well as covering “early OIT,” in which children below the age of four are introduced to a food allergen in order to build up a tolerance.

Dr. Peter Mazzone, Director of the Lung Cancer Program for the Respiratory Institute and the Lung Cancer Screening Program for Cleveland Clinic, discusses why the low-dose CT screening test for lung cancer has become the standard of care for high-risk individuals and the necessity of having a system in place to manage the scan’s findings. He also talks about follow-up needed for lung nodules found during screening and predictive tools for lung cancer that are on the horizon.

Dr. Marie Budev, director of the Cleveland Clinic Lung Transplant Program, tackles the huge subject of Lung Transplant, covering a range of topics that includes when the right time to refer a patient is and what the contraindications are for transplant. She discusses the Lung Allocation Score, lung transplant survival rate and how long it takes to get a patient ready for transplant. Dr. Budev also talks about new ways in which the donor lung pool is being expanded and the impact of COVID-19 on lung transplant patients.

Dr. Daniel Culver, chair of the Cleveland Clinic Department for Pulmonary Medicine, and Dr. Manuel Ribeiro, director of the Sarcoidosis Center at the Cleveland Clinic, recap the highlights from the December WASOG Diseases conference. They review the discussions on Progressive Fibrosing Interstitial Lung Disease, the relationship between inflammation and fibrosis, the new European Respiratory Society Guidelines and various themes coming out of the Cardiac Sarcoidosis sessions.