Respiratory disease

Respiratory disease
Micrograph of an emphysematous lung; emphysema is a respiratory disease, strongly associated with smoking. H&E stain.
SpecialtyPulmonology

Respiratory diseases, or lung diseases,[1] are pathological conditions affecting the organs and tissues that make gas exchange difficult in air-breathing animals. They include conditions of the respiratory tract including the trachea, bronchi, bronchioles, alveoli, pleurae, pleural cavity, the nerves and muscles of respiration. Respiratory diseases range from mild and self-limiting, such as the common cold, influenza, and pharyngitis to life-threatening diseases such as bacterial pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, tuberculosis, acute asthma, lung cancer,[2] and severe acute respiratory syndromes, such as COVID-19.[3] Respiratory diseases can be classified in many different ways, including by the organ or tissue involved, by the type and pattern of associated signs and symptoms, or by the cause of the disease.

The study of respiratory disease is known as pulmonology. A physician who specializes in respiratory disease is known as a pulmonologist, a chest medicine specialist, a respiratory medicine specialist, a respirologist or a thoracic medicine specialist.

  1. ^ "Lung diseases". MeSH.nlm.nih.gov. Archived from the original on 12 June 2020. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  2. ^ Sengupta N, Sahidullah M, Saha G (August 2016). "Lung sound classification using cepstral-based statistical features". Computers in Biology and Medicine. 75 (1): 118–29. doi:10.1016/j.compbiomed.2016.05.013. PMID 27286184.
  3. ^ "COVID-19 and vascular disease". eBioMedicine. 58: 102966. August 2020. doi:10.1016/j.ebiom.2020.102966. PMC 7438984. PMID 32829782.