Control Lung Tissues: The Lung Tissue Research Consortium obtains
surgical waste tissues from individuals undergoing lung resection or
biopsy for clinical indications. The average age of individuals
undergoing surgical resection in the LTRC repository is approximately
60 years. As such, the LTRC does not provide access to completely
normal lung tissues. The investigator should be aware of this when
requesting tissues from the LTRC repository. Appropriate controls for
most studies of COPD would consist of peripheral lung tissues resected
at time of nodule resection from patients with normal lung function
testing parameters. However, such tissues may have some microscopic
evidence of minimal centrilobular emphysema or respiratory
bronchiolitis. These finding would be reviewed and scored as minimal by
the LTRC lung pathologist. Appropriate controls for interstitial lung
disease could also include similar tissues from patients undergoing
nodule resection. Alternatively, investigators might evaluate tissue
changes across patients with increasing severity of physiologic
impairment related to their underlying disease (either COPD or IPF),
contrasting changes in those with mild disease to those with more
severe impairment.