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Novel measure of lung function for assessing disease activity in asthma
Nicholas M J Smith1,2, John Couper1, Christopher J Fullerton2
1Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Introduction:
In asthma, lung function measures are often discordant with clinical features such as disease activity or control.
Methods:
We investigated a novel technique that provides a measure (σCL) of unevenness (inhomogeneity) in lung inflation/deflation. In particular, we compared σCL with FEV1% predicted (FEV1%pred) as measures of disease activity in the asthmatic lung.
Results:
σCL correlated modestly with FEV1%pred. However, σCL is not simply a proxy for FEV1%pred as the effects of salbutamol on the two parameters were unrelated. Importantly, σCL reflected disease control better than FEV1.
Discussion:
We conclude that σCL shows promise as an objective measure of disease activity in asthma.
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