Airways responsiveness determined by consecutive histamine challenges in asymptomatic asthmatics

The effect of two consecutive histamine inhalation challenges on airways responsiveness was assessed in a group of eight nonsmoking nonmedicated asthmatics aged 19-27 yr. All subjects had a base-line forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) of greater than 80% of their predicted normal value before the initial challenge and were allowed to recover to greater than 95% of the initial base-line FEV1 value before the second challenge was initiated. The average airways recovery time after the first challenge was 44 min but ranged between 30 and 90 min. The mean +/- SD values of cumulative histamine dose units provoking a 20% decrease of the FEV1 from the buffer control value (PD20FEV1) were 10.79 +/- 5.95 determined with the first and 30.50 +/- 46.36 with the second challenge (P greater than 0.05). We conclude that sequential histamine challenges performed in mild asthmatics with closely controlled prechallenge airways function are well tolerated. Although some variance does exist in intersubject airways recovery time and in intra-subject histamine airways responsiveness determined by sequential challenges, our data do not support recent observations (J. Appl. Physiol. 63: 1572-1577, 1987) that histamine tolerance is a characteristic finding associated with bronchial asthma.