Where does fluid accumulate in a pleural effusion?
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healthdirect: Pleural effusion@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook v3.0: Initial treatment for adults and adolescents@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
A silent chest is an emergency
In acute asthma, wheeze means air is still moving. A silent chest or reduced air entry signals life-threatening asthma — as do drowsiness, cyanosis, poor breathing effort, bradycardia and SpO2 below 92%.
Australian Asthma Handbook v3.0: Managing acute asthma in adults and adolescentsThe night a thunderstorm caused an asthma emergency
On 21–22 November 2016 a storm swept across Melbourne during the grass pollen season. Within hours thousands of people had breathing problems. Ambulance services and emergency departments were overwhelmed, and the event is thought to have contributed to nine deaths. Victoria now has a thunderstorm asthma forecast every pollen season.
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Inspector-General for Emergency Management Victoria: Thunderstorm asthma review, Final Report (2017)Inhalers have Victorian ancestors
Inhaled treatment is not a modern invention. A respiratory-history timeline places Nelson's inhaler and nebulisers in the 1860s, well before the pressurised metered-dose inhaler appeared in the 1950s.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease management@scrollmed_auRespiratory
COPD-X: Manage exacerbationsSpirometry predates chest X-rays
Hutchinson's spirometer dates to 1842, decades before chest X-rays. Measuring lung volumes came well before clinicians could routinely look inside the chest with radiology.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementWhich medicine group is first-line for bronchodilation during a COPD exacerbation?
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COPD-X: Manage exacerbations@scrollmed_auRespiratory
RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines: Croup@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Assessing and reviewing asthma in adults and adolescentsWhen is the PERC rule appropriate for excluding pulmonary embolism without further testing?
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RACGP: Pulmonary embolism—An updateThe iron lung came before the ICU era
Drinker's iron lung appears in the respiratory timeline in the 1920s. Mechanical breathing support was already developing decades before nasal non-invasive ventilation entered that timeline in the 1980s.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementAir can move between neighbouring alveoli
In experimental mouse lung injury, researchers directly visualised pendelluft: neighbouring alveoli ventilating out of synchrony, with gas shifting between them. Local blood oxygenation suffered even without a simple collapse-and-reopening pattern.
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Acute Lung Injury Causes Asynchronous Alveolar Ventilation. PMID 26513710Which inhaler prescription should routinely include a spacer?
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Australian Asthma Handbook: Delivery of inhaled medicines with pMDIs and spacers@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Delivery of inhaled medicines with pMDIs and spacersAn adult has variable wheeze. Which finding supports asthma when typical symptoms are present?
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Australian Asthma Handbook: Lung function testsCAP severity changes the question
Severity assessment in adult community-acquired pneumonia is important, but selecting a single best method is not straightforward. For low-severity disease, oral amoxicillin is the empirical mainstay; routine atypical-pathogen cover remains debated.
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Australian Prescriber CAP discussionIn a young person with primary spontaneous pneumothorax, what matters most when judging the need for intervention?
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RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Adjusting treatment for adults and adolescentsFor low-severity adult community-acquired pneumonia, which empirical principle is supported?
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Australian Prescriber CAP discussionWhat is the main purpose of the Wells score in suspected pulmonary embolism?
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RACGP: Pulmonary embolism—An update@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Asthma action plans@scrollmed_auRespiratory
COPD-X: Manage exacerbationsIn a patient with a compatible clinical history, which spirometric result meets the COPD-X fixed-ratio criterion?
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COPD-X: C2.3 SpirometryProgressive exertional dyspnoea, dry cough and fine basal inspiratory crackles should raise suspicion of which disease group?
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RACGP: Interstitial lung disease in 2015—Where are we now?@scrollmed_auRespiratory
RACGP: Supporting smoking and vaping cessation, October 2024@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Adjusting treatment for adults and adolescentsWhich inhaled medicine is recommended for severe croup while senior airway support is arranged?
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RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines: Croup@scrollmed_auRespiratory
RACGP: Supporting smoking cessation—RecommendationsA patient has a painfully full bladder and cannot pass urine. What is the key immediate step?
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healthdirect urinary retention@scrollmed_auRespiratory
healthdirect haemoptysisCPAP joined the respiratory timeline late
CPAP for sleep apnoea appears in the 1980s section of a respiratory-history timeline. By then, clinicians had already used spirometers, chest X-rays and inhaled therapies for generations.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease management@scrollmed_auRespiratory
Safe Work Australia: Engineered stone banLoud snoring, witnessed breathing pauses and daytime sleepiness suggest OSA. Which investigation helps confirm it?
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healthdirect: Obstructive sleep apnoeaWhich approach is recommended for an infant with typical bronchiolitis?
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RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines: BronchiolitisWho meets the published entry criteria for Australia's National Lung Cancer Screening Program?
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Australian Government: National lung cancer screening program launched, 1 July 2025@scrollmed_auRespiratory
RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines: BronchiolitisWhat SpO2 range should supplemental oxygen target in a hypoxaemic COPD exacerbation?
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COPD-X: Manage exacerbations@scrollmed_auRespiratory
healthdirect: Pleural effusion@scrollmed_auRespiratory
Australian Government: National lung cancer screening program launched, 1 July 2025Chronic productive cough and repeated chest infections suggest bronchiectasis. Which imaging test helps establish the diagnosis?
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healthdirect: BronchiectasisLungs can finish making platelets
Lungs do more than exchange gases. Live imaging in mice showed megakaryocytes releasing platelets in lung vessels; researchers estimated this supplied about half of total platelet production in those mice.
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Lefrançais E et al. Nature 2017;544:105–109With behavioural support, which NRT approach is more effective than using one NRT product alone?
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RACGP: Supporting smoking cessation—RecommendationsThe first transplant was not the breakthrough
The first lung transplant and successful lung transplantation belong to different eras. A respiratory-history review places the first operation in the 1960s, but successful transplants in the 1980s.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease management@scrollmed_auRespiratory
healthdirect: BronchiectasisAn oxygen Nobel awarded a year late
Otto Meyerhof shared the 1922 medicine Nobel for connecting muscle oxygen consumption with lactic-acid metabolism. The award was reserved, so he and co-laureate Archibald Hill actually received it in 1923.
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Nobel Prize: Physiology or Medicine 1922TB was declining before streptomycin
Tuberculosis was already declining in wealthy countries before streptomycin was discovered. The history of TB control is therefore bigger than antibiotics alone, with living conditions and public health also part of the story.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementDoctors once collapsed lungs on purpose
Artificial pneumothorax was once a treatment for tuberculosis. Deliberately collapsing a lung belonged to the therapeutic toolkit long before effective anti-tuberculosis antibiotics arrived.
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Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementWhen do symptoms of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction typically peak?
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Australian Asthma Handbook: Exercise and asthmaA Nobel Prize for unravelling TB
Robert Koch received the entire 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on tuberculosis. A disease of the lungs helped shape one of medicine's earliest Nobel awards.
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Nobel Prize: Physiology or Medicine 1905A pregnant patient has well-controlled asthma. What is the best general approach to treatment?
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Australian Asthma Handbook: Asthma in pregnancy@scrollmed_asthmaRespiratory
Australian Asthma Handbook: Managing acute asthma in adults and adolescents in primary careA blood-cell reserve in the lung
In mice, researchers found blood-forming progenitor cells outside lung vessels. Under experimental conditions involving platelet depletion and limited marrow stem cells, these cells could leave the lungs and repopulate bone marrow.
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Lefrançais E et al. Nature 2017;544:105–109You're all caught up
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