This one actually didn't seem too surprising to me, but it is cool that they were able to find the connection.
New Light Shed on Deadly Lung Disease
TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDayNews) -- New research holds out hope for people suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a deadly lung disease, by discovering that cells that travel to the organ to repair damage end up doing more harm than good.
The study found these biological repairmen, which experts had thought originally resided in the lungs, were actually adult stem cells that migrated there from the patient's bone marrow -- and this migration can be halted.
...
"It's certainly very exciting research, but the information is obviously very preliminary," said Dr. Alfred Munzer, a lung specialist from Maryland and past president of the American Lung Association. "We have to see what meaning it holds."
Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic and often fatal disorder that is characterized by extra scar tissue in the lungs. The disease, which affects some 80,000 individuals in the United States, has traditionally been treated with steroids and other immunosuppressive therapies, but with little effect. About 70 percent of people die within five years of diagnosis. "At the moment, there is no effective treatment for pulmonary disease, and it is not that uncommon a disease," Munzer said. [medicinenet.com]
What I think about this is that it gives me hope for people who get IPF in the future. I'm already well on my way to getting a new lung, but that honestly isn't my first choice. And it isn't something available to all people. In many ways I'm very lucky in that I haven't gotten worse in well over a year (*knocks on wood*).
