Application of metabolomics and microbiome sequencing in diagnosing and monitoring lung disease (COPD, Lung cancer, asthma, infections)
Pulmonary diseases (COPD, lung cancer, asthma and others)
Following provision of written, informed consent, participants attending hospital or their GP for their respiratory condition will be asked questions regarding their age, illness and treatments. They will be asked to provide a sputum / saliva sample, venous blood and urine sample. If they are having another procedure as part of routine care (e.g pleural aspiration, bronchoscopy etc) an additional sample of that tissue (pleural fluid or bronchial ashing / biopsy) will be taken for research purposes at the same time. Participants will be requested to provide sputum, urine and blood samples whenever they attend hospital Including if they become unwell) i.e. opportunistic sampling for up to 10 years. We don't have specific time points.
Subjects: patients with a diagnosis of respiratory disease and eventually healthy control volunteers. These will conform to the following categories. COPD: 1. Patients suffering from COPD according to current standard criteria 2. Age over 40 years 3. Ex or current smokers of at least 10 pack-years 4. Post bronchodilator FEV1/FVC<0.70 and FEV1<80% predicted Lung Cancer: 1. Patients referred by their GPs or other specialists with possible diagnosis of lung cancer 2. Have a smoking history, asbestos exposure or other suspicious symptoms including breathlessness, chest pain, cough, weight loss or exhibits an abnormal chest X-ray Healthy Controls: 1. Spouses and family members of COPD patients 2. Smokers attending our secondary care smoking cessation service 3. No symptoms or known diagnoses of lung disease. Patients with lung disease other than COPD or Lung Cancer: depending on resources the study will be expanded to include other controls with asthma, bronchiectasis, fibrosis or lung other diseases.
No exclusion criteria have been defined, except for the good condition of collected samples and reliability of the information provided to the reseachers by the particiapants.