Stanford Center for Excellence in Pulmonary Biology

the division of pulmonary medicine deals with the breath of life in all its aspects: control of breathing; sleep disorders; obstruction to airflow in the common diseases of upper and lower airways such as croup, bronchiolitis, asthma, cystic fibrosis, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia; restriction to lung function from disorders affecting the chest wall, the musculature, the nervous system, or lung tissue itself; congenital anomalies; accidents such as inhalation of foreign bodies, hydrocarbons, or toxic gases; secondary effects of non-pulmonary system disorders such as gastrointestinal reflux, myopathy, or cardiac dysfunction; disease of the upper respiratory tract including rhinitis and sinusitis; and so on. in many cases, diagnoses are not immediately apparent, and an efficient approach to the differential consideration of causation with procedures such as pulmonary function testing, bronchoprovocation, exercise testing, various imaging methods, in vitro evaluation of immune competence