Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered a protein that plays a critical role in clearing collagen from tissue and may be a therapeutic target to help prevent fibrosis, scar tissue that interferes with organ function.

A new screening tool identified roughly half of primary care patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) who could benefit from available treatments.

A new screening tool for electronic medical records accurately identifies patients who are at high risk of having or developing progressive scarring of the lungs, a condition called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, according to investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian, the University of Chicago, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mayo Clinic.

Despite cigarette smoking being the single most preventable risk factor for both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), two devastating diseases that make it hard to breathe, about 44 million American adults continue to smoke.

The specialized endothelial cells that line the blood vessels in the lung may hold the key to treating the common and often-fatal lung disease emphysema, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian.

Adding antibiotics to usual care does not improve outcomes for people with the lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), according to the findings from a multi-center, phase 3 clinical trial sponsored by Weill Cornell Medicine.