Forced air ionization of the air from the room

Forced air ionization of the air from the room

Additional method for the treatment of respiratory distress cystic fibrosis

Ioan Popa¹, Constantin Pascu², Zagorca Popa³, Liviu Pop¹

  1. Clinic II Paediatrics, UMF Timisoara
  2. Tehno Bionic Buzau
  3. Timisoara Cystic Fibrosis Center

The premises of the paper

  • CF respiratory distress is the main factor influencing the prognosis.
  • The establishment of a well-specified therapeutic scheme, adequate to the age and clinical condition of the patient, is for the time being the only chance to improve the prognosis of these patients.
  • Daily therapy with mucolytic substances in aerosols at home – “home therapy” – is one of the mandatory links of treatment; rH – DNA – to represent from this point of view the best option.
  • Unfortunately, in countries with low economic standards, such as Romania, accessibility to rH-DNA-sa treatment is extremely limited due to very high costs.
  • At the same time, as an adjunct in aerosol treatment, concentrated NaCl solutions and cures performed in areas rich in sodium ions (saline, sea shore) have proved beneficial.
  • Starting from the favourable effect of the NaCl treatment, Tehno Bionic Buzau, Romania imagined and built the “Salin” device for the forced air ionization of the air in the room.
  • The principle of the method: the forced passage of air between the plates with microcrystalline salt deposition, which leads to changes in the composition and quality of the air, through a phenomenon of sublimation of salt.

The purpose of the paper

The aim of the paper is the clinical confirmation of the efficiency of the therapy of patients with CF and chronic respiratory suffering, by forced air ionization of the room air.

Material and method

  • The study was performed over an interval of 6 months, on two groups of children and young people with CF from the records of the Cystic Fibrosis Center in Timisoara (fig. 1)
    • Group I: 10 patients (4 boys and 6 girls), aged between 5 and 16 years (average 10.1 years), for whom air ionization was performed (living room, bedroom)
    • Group II (control): 8 patients (3 boys and 5 girls), aged between 5 and 17 years (average 10.1 years) for whom the device operated without the introduction of salt plates.
  • The device operated on average 8-10 hours / day, at a supply voltage of 9V
  • All patients continued appropriate observation during the observation.
  • Parameters taken in the study were:
    • The general clinical condition of the patient through subjective self-assessment in the case of young people, respectively the parents’ appreciation in the case of younger children
  • Clinical examination of the respiratory system
  • FEV 1 value in older children
    • The selection criteria in both groups were (Fig. 2):
      • Patients with advanced disease (3 in group I, 2 in group II) – Fig.1:
        • Ps.ae infection. and / or Staf.aur.
        • bronchiectasis
        • FEV 1 < 50
          • Patients with average or good clinical condition (7 from group I, 6 from group II) – Fig. 3:
            • No added respiratory infection
            • FEV 1> 50-60%

Fig.1. Vârsta pacienților

Fig. 2 Starea clinica a pacientilor

Rezultate

  • In group I the following were noticed:
    • Significant improvement in clinical condition;
      • The subjective sensation of “better” noticed by patients, respectively by parents, especially in those with more advanced disease;
    • Improving objective signs of disease:
      • Intensifying of the elimination of sputum in one stage, followed by a significant reduction in its amount
    • Improvement of respiratory functional syndrome
    • Reduction of auscultation rales
    • FEV 1 improvement (fig.3)
    • Since the initiation of air-ionization therapy in the room air, none of the patients has experienced recurrences of respiratory distress, so severe as to require readmission to the hospital.
  • In group II there were no changes comparable to group I (fig.4)

Fig. 3 Lot I

Fig. 4 Lot II

Conclusions

  • Forced air ionization by sublimation of salt is an effective method of treating respiratory distress in CF
  • The method is adjuvant, does not exclude classical therapy
  • It is a natural method of therapy, adapted to the living space, so it does not involve risks.
  • It is a relatively inexpensive method of therapy.

Inhalation of saline solutions reduces exhaled bioaerosols

Inhalation of saline solutions reduces exhaled bioaerosols

David A. Edwards, Jonathan C. Man, Peter Brand, Jeffrey P. Katstra, K. Sommerer, Howard A. Stone, Edward Nardell, Gerhard Scheuch

People exhale aerosols composed of small droplets of fluid that cover the airways during normal breathing. These exhaled bioaerosols can carry pathogens into the air and thus amplify the spread of certain infectious diseases, such as influenza, tuberculosis and severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The authors hypothesize that by altering the surface properties of the pulmonary airways with an inhaled nontoxic aerosol, the number of expired bioaerosol droplets could be substantially reduced and this would be a simple way to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases by air.

Methods

11 healthy adult volunteers aged 18 to 65 years with normal lung function were selected for participation in this study. Exclusion criteria included a history or evidence of lung disease (e.g., cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or severe asthma), a history or evidence of cardiovascular disease, or acute / chronic upper or lower respiratory tract infections, pregnancy, or breastfeeding . Each subject performed three clinical visits during the study to measure particle exhalation. During their first visit, subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment group and received an aerosol with either a saline solution or a DPPC / POPG surfactant. After at least a week, the subjects made their second visit. Particle exhalation was measured immediately before and 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours and 6 hours after inhalation. During the third visit, at least one month after the last treatment, the expiration of the particles was assessed in the absence of treatment. During dosing, each subject received saline aerosol or surfactant from a PARI LC Plus Jet nebulizer (PARI, Starnberg, Germany) connected to a compressed air source at 18 psi (1 psi = 6.89 kPa) (1.24 bar).

Conclusions

At the end of the study, it was established that some human subjects exhale more bioaerosol particles than other individuals during breathing. The first exhale on average more than 500 particles per liter in a 6-hour interval, and the others, less than 500. Of the group of 11 volunteers, six belong to the first category and five to the second.

Another conclusion of the research was that the administration of nebulized isotonic saline in these ”large producers ” individuals reduces the number of expired bioaerosol particles by 72.10 ± 8.19% for up to 6 hours after inhalation.

The authors recommend that the effects of saline solutions to modify the properties of the surface of the pulmonary airways, respectively on the transmission of airborne pathogens, be explored further.

Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/101/50/17383

About treating respiratory diseases with Dr. Catalin Carstoveanu

About treating respiratory diseases with Dr. Catalin Carstoveanu

Original article on sfatulmedicului.ro

Catalin Carstoveanu, primary neonatologist at the “Maria Sklodowska Curie” Children’s Emergency Hospital in Bucharest, in an interview in which he talks about the use of the SaltMed saline inhaler (the only inhaler with constant emission of dry salt particles) in the hospital.

In the hospital, what is the most important condition, in the treatment of which you use SaltMed therapy?

Personally, I was involved in treating three types of patients. One and the most important, with obviously positive results – chronic lung disease in new-borns and infants.

A few words about this disease: it is a chronic lung disease, which is a very disabling one, whose main trigger is mechanical ventilation but which also has other triggers: oxygen administration, atelectrauma, infections, etc.

Mechanical ventilation must be conducted in a certain way, usually volutrauma and barotrauma are serious elements in the progression and triggering of the disease, but with all these preventive measures, chronic pulmonary disease is present.

We have many patients suffering from this disease, some of whom we simply cannot sometimes disconnect from mechanical ventilators due to the severity of chronic lung disease, which means long-term pulmonary ventilation. We have a former premature baby hospitalized with multiple diseases but also with chronic lung disease, which after 8 months we managed to disconnect from the ventilation devices, using SaltMed therapy.

We also have another premature baby with very low birth weight, with chronic lung disease, who was mechanically ventilated very gently, who received a very small oxygen fraction during mechanical ventilation, but who had a severe maternal-foetal infection and who now has a severe chronic illness. From the first minutes of the SaltMed administration, we managed to obtain a Tidal Expiratory Volume 20% higher and a saturation 2-3% higher at the same mechanical ventilation parameters.