Spectrum of corticosteroid sensitivity in nocturnal asthma

The nocturnal worsening of asthma is a common problem, and the contribution of inflammation to its pathogenesis remains unclear. We investigated the responses of 11 asthmatic subjects to overnight intravenous infusion of hydrocortisone. Prior to the study, all the subjects demonstrated clinically stable daytime asthma but persistent nocturnal worsening of spirometry. As a group, their overnight decrement in FEV1 improved from 46 +/- 4% at baseline to 12 +/- 3% (p less than 0.001) after steroid infusion. Nine of the 11 subjects demonstrated individual improvement in their overnight decrements in FEV1 of greater than 40%. The mean improvement between baseline and steroid infusion nights was 67 +/- 11%. A spectrum of response was evident, and only four of the subjects reached the normal circadian variability in overnight FEV1 measurements of less than 8%. We conclude that the nocturnal worsening of asthma often has a significant corticosteroid-sensitive component that may be both dose- and time-dependent.