How To Diagnose Respiratory Diseases?

Chronic respiratory diseases are chronic diseases of the airways and other structures of the lung.

Among those, the most common illnesses include: respiratory allergies, asthma, occupational lung diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pulmonary hypertension.

The most important risk factors for preventable chronic respiratory diseases include:

• Indoor air pollution


• Allergens


• Tobacco smoking


• Occupational risks


• Outdoor pollution
  

Nowadays, hundreds of millions of people are suffering from chronic respiratory diseases. According to the recent studies, presently 210 million people are suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 300 million people from asthma, and millions of people from allergic rhinitis.

Respiratory system has a great role in our body. Not only it supplies oxygen to various cells of the body, but also it washouts the wastages, supplies air required for speech and filters out infectious agents. So, it is very much essential to protect our respiratory system in all aspects.

In order to investigate your chronic respiratory diseases, you need to undergo one or more of the following tests:

Pulmonary function test: It is a group of tests used to evaluate how well the lungs take in and release air and how well they move gases such as oxygen from the lungs.

Chest X-ray: This test is used to diagnose the conditions that affect your chest, its content and nearby structures. It generates the image of your chest.

Bronchoscopy: This method is used to observe inside of your airways for therapeutic and diagnostic purpose. In this procedure, an instrument is placed in your airways through mouth or nose. With the help of this test, your practitioner can observe the abnormalities of your airways like bleeding, foreign bodies, inflammation or tumors.

Computed tomography scan: CT scan is a medical imaging method employing tomography created by computer processing. This type of digital geometry processing is used to produce a three-dimensional image of the inside of your body from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis.

Biopsy: In this procedure cells or tissues are removed from the lung or pleura for examination. This method helps to find out the presence of the disease. The cells are examined under a microscope and also analyzed chemically.

Ultrasound: This method is used to detect fluid such as pleural effusion.

Ventilation – Perfusion scan: It is used to evaluate circulation of blood and air within your lungs. Perfusion part assesses how well the blood circulates within the lungs, whereas ventilation part observes whether the air reaches all parts of the lungs or not.

Culture of microorganisms: This method is used to determine the cause of infectious diseases. For instance, your throat culture is taken by scratching the lining of tissue in the back of your throat and blotting the sample into a media to be able to screen for harmful microorganisms, like streptococcus pyogenes, the causative means of strep throat.