Respiratory failure is a condition in which your lungs have a hard time loading your blood with oxygen or removing carbon dioxide. "Respiratory failure represents the respiratory system's inability to perform gas exchange," explains Aaron Waxman, MD, director of the Pulmonary Vascular Disease Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. "Gas exchange is the transit of oxygen into the bloodstream, and carbon dioxide out." It can leave you with low oxygen, high carbon dioxide, or...

Neuroblastoma is a rare childhood cancer of what’s called the "sympathetic nervous system" — the network of nerves that carries messages from your brain to the rest of your body. This cancer most often begins around the adrenal glands, a pair of hormone-producing organs that sit atop your kidneys and have cells similar to nerve cells. But neuroblastoma can also start in other areas of your body where groups of nerve cells are clustered. Doctors most often diagnose it in children younger than...

Inhaled insulin is a drug you breathe into your lungs to help control your blood sugar and diabetes. It comes in the form of an inhaler. "Inhaled insulin comes as a powder and has a component that helps it absorb into the lungs," explains Thomas Blevins, MD, a board-certified endocrinologist at Texas Diabetes and Endocrinology. "The lungs have a large absorptive capacity, so insulin gets across readily. And with the inhaled version, it gets into the bloodstream very quickly." How Does Inhaled...