Inhaled Dry Powder Antibiotics in Patients with Non-Cystic Fibrosis Bronchiectasis: Efficacy and Safety in a Real-Life Study.

BACKGROUND: Nebulised antibiotics are habitually used in patients with bronchiectasis, but the use of dry powder inhaled antibiotics (DPIA) in these patients is extremely limited. This study seeks to analyse the efficacy and safety of DPIA in bronchiectasis patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Multi-centre study of historic cohorts. All the hospital centres in Spain were contacted in order to collect data on patients with a diagnosis of bronchiectasis who had taken at least one dose of DPIA. Its efficacy was analysed in clinical, functional and microbiological terms by comparing the year before and the year after the prescription of DPIA. Adverse effects and variables associated with these effects, or any need to withdraw the drug, were also analysed. RESULTS: 164 patients from 33 Spanish centres were included; 86% and 14% of these were treated with dry powder colistin and tobramycin, respectively. Chronic bronchial infection by Pseudomonas aeruginosa was present in 86% of these patients, and DPIA significantly reduced the number of exacerbations, the quantity and purulence of sputum and the isolation of pathogenic microorganisms. The most common adverse effect was cough (40%), particularly in cases of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and a previous cough and in those patients who had difficulties in handling the device. These factors were associated with a higher level of withdrawal of the treatment. There were no serious adverse effects. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that DPIA are clinically efficacious and safe for treating bronchiectasis patients. Cough was shown to be the most common side-effect and reason for withdrawal of the treatment.

ALK-mutated non-small-cell lung cancer: a new strategy for cancer treatment.

The anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase (TK) receptor has emerged recently as a potentially relevant biomarker and therapeutic target in solid and hematologic tumors. A variety of alterations in the ALK gene, such as mutations, overexpression, amplification, translocations, or other structural rearrangements, have been implicated in human cancer tumorigenesis. In this article we review the potential role that ALK may have in lung tumor origin, the methodology to detect the different molecular alterations, and the most important clinical aspects of ALK alterations in NSCLC patients.