[Use of inflammatory markers for monitoring paediatric asthma]

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Pulmonology
• Biomarkers in Asthma Management
• Inflammatory Markers

Background:

• Asthma control assessment traditionally involves symptoms, quality of life, lung function, and inflammatory markers.
• Recent years have seen a surge in research on biomarkers for pediatric asthma management.
• Many described inflammatory markers lack proven utility in routine disease monitoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the utility of various inflammatory biomarkers in assessing and monitoring pediatric asthma.
• To identify reliable biomarkers for effective management of childhood asthma.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent publications on inflammatory markers in pediatric asthma.
• Analysis of evidence supporting the use of biomarkers such as induced sputum eosinophils, exhaled breath condensate, urinary leukotrienes, nitric oxide, basic eosinophil cationic protein, and bronchial biopsy with bronchoalveolar lavage.
• Assessment of standardization and interpretability of results for potential future biomarkers.

Main Results:

• Induced sputum eosinophils demonstrate the most robust evidence for assessing pediatric asthma control.
• Exhaled breath condensate and urinary leukotrienes show potential but require procedural standardization and result interpretation.
• Nitric oxide, basic eosinophil cationic protein, and bronchial biopsy with bronchoalveolar lavage are useful only in a limited patient subset.

Conclusions:

• Induced sputum eosinophils are currently the most valuable biomarker for monitoring pediatric asthma.
• Further standardization is needed for exhaled breath condensate and urinary leukotrienes to be widely adopted.
• The utility of other investigated biomarkers is limited to specific patient groups.