Pulmonary Dysfunction and Disease

Lung ventilation is driven by a complex neural regulatory network, and apart from conditions typically observed during a disease state, it is sensitive to functional dysregulation. This book focuses on a wide variety of pulmonary topics including inflammation, infection, cancerogenesis, hypoxia, and stress. The chapters deal with the pathophysiologic background of processes and mechanisms whereby abnormal or undesired conditions develop and progress. The exemplary topics concern the genotyping of mutations involved in the development of lung cancer, which helps target molecular anticancer therapy, or the advances in computed tomography technology employed in pulmonary diagnostics. Functional cardio-respiratory changes associated with a particular disease or resulting from disease, or dysautonomic state due to affective disorder or hypokinesia of spaceflight microgravity also are tackled. The book is intended for medical researchers and clinicians, notably pulmonologists, internists, family doctors, and all interested in this exciting area of science.