Comprehensive assessment of the relation between clinical symptoms, functional parameters and biomarkers of airway inflammation

Abstract

Background: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways causing bronchial hyper-responsiveness that is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms and airflow obstruction. Asthma is characterized by multiple biomarkers measurable in biological fluids. To become useful, these biomarkers need to be quantifiable by reliable systems, reproducible in the clinical setting, easy to obtain and cost-effective. bjective: The current study aimed to assess the relation between clinical symptoms, functional parameters and biomarkers of airway inflammation. Materials and Methods: This prospective, observational and single-center study carried out in the outpatient and inpatient department of Thoracic medicine, Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, Tamil Nadu, India from June-2017 to June-2018 was aimed to assess the relation between clinical symptoms, functional parameters and biomarkers of airway inflammation in all stable asthmatic patients of 18–60 years of age. The severity of asthma was assessed according to the GINA criteria, based on clinical symptoms and pulmonary function test. Blood samples were collected for absolute eosinophil count and induced sputum samples for eosinophil count. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and statistical analysis was performed by t-test. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.