[Detection of bronchial hyperreactivity especially in exercise asthma using cold air hyperventilation provocation,...

In 92 children with different severity of bronchial asthma, a provocation by hyperventilation with cold air has been performed. Forty seven percent of the patients reacted with significant changes of RvD, of RoS, and of FEV1. All patients with negative response to cold air (53%) showed a significant increase of Ros after the inhalation of acetylcholine (threshold value: less than or equal to 0.1%). Eighty percent of the examined asthmatics with negative reaction to cold air reacted after free running with a significant increase of Ros. Thus, the hyperreactivity to a stress by cold air was no general or regular phenomenon in the patients with bronchial asthma investigated by us. There was also no correlation between complaints triggered by exercise reported in the anamnesis, the results of provocation tests using cold air, and the results of respiratory function test after free running.