EDITORIAL

Abstract

Restructuring of the Editorial Board, which began in January 2004, is now complete, following ballots for representatives from countries with a significant number of financial members of the APSR. I am pleased to welcome Ken Ohta at the Teiko University in Japan, Pan Chyr Yang at the National Taiwan University, David Hui at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Guy Marks at the University of Sydney in Australia. I am very pleased to welcome these people to the Editorial Board, along with the new Board Members who joined earlier this year, and appreciate their support of Respirology. As the Journal continues to grow and the number of manuscripts submitted continues to increase, we have invited another Associate Editor to join our team. I am delighted that Professor Se Hwa Yoo of the Korea University Medical Centre in Seoul has accepted the invitation to be an Associate Editor. Prof Se Hwa Yoo is a member of the APSR Executive, being a Council Member representing Korea and has had editorial experience with journals at home and internationally. We look forward to his contribution to the Journal. The Invited Review Series ‘Pleural Diseases’ continues with ‘Management of malignant pleural effusions’ by YC Gary Lee and Richard Light. Dr YC Gary Lee is a clinician scientist and is an Honorary Respiratory Physician at the Osler Chest Unit, Oxford and a Wellcome Advanced Fellow at the University College London, UK. He has published over 50 original papers and invited chapters/reviews, mostly on pleural diseases. He is interested in the study of pleural inflammation and fibrosis, and has published extensively on the experimental use of transforming growth factor-β as a novel pleurodesing agent. His long-term aim is to develop better understanding of the pathophysiology of pleural inflammation and pleural effusion formation, in order to develop better clinical management options. Professor Richard Light is Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University and Director of Pulmonary Services at St Thomas Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He is the leading authority in pleural diseases, with over 300 publications. The Light criteria, named after Professor Light, has been the standard method worldwide to differentiate transudative effusions from exudates for the past 30 years. He is responsible for many landmark studies on different aspects of pleural diseases, including the management of pneumothorax and malignant effusions. He leads one of the most productive pleural research groups worldwide, with active work on animal studies in pleurodesis and clinical studies on postcoronary artery bypass effusions, among others. Gary Lee and Richard Light are the editors of the Textbook of Pleural Disease, the most comprehensive text on basic and clinical disease in this area. They have also initiated the International Pleural Newsletter, a free electronic periodical which is distributed by most leading thoracic societies to over 12 000 physicians worldwide. The other review in the Pleural Diseases series is ‘Pneumothorax’ by Michael Baumann in the USA and Marc Nopper in Belgium. Mike Baumann is currently at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, where he is very active in designing and performing studies on pleural disorders, for example a guideline report on the management of pneumothorax. His coauthor Marc Noppen is currently Head of the Interventional Endoscopy Clinic at the University Hospital of the Free University in Brussels, Belgium. This is the largest interventional procedure centre in Belgium, a referral centre for neighbouring countries, and a teaching centre for overseas fellows. Marc Noppen is president of the ERS Interventional Pulmonology working group. His current research focuses mainly on pneumothorax, thoracoscopy and interventional bronchoscopy. The Tobacco Review Series, which ran in Volume 8, now concludes with an article on tackling the problem of smoking where it may possibly be most effective, teaching medical students to counsel their patients to stop smoking. ‘The process of introducing a tobacco curriculum in medical school’ by Robyn Richmond offers thoughts on including tobacco strategies in the training of future medical practitioners. Professor Richmond's principal research interests are ways to reduce smoking prevalence, particularly in changing behavious and practice in public health settings. She is part of an Australian national group developing guidelines for best clinical practice in smoking cessation for family medicine practitioners. Robyn served a total of 6 years as Chair or Deputy Chair of the Tobacco Prevention Secion of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease based in Paris.