Pharmacological analysis of reactivity changes in airways due to acute inflammation in cats

Our recent in vitro studies on airways smooth muscles of the cat with turpentine oil inflammation showed the occurrence of a contractile response of tracheal preparations and a significant increase in the isometric tension of lung strips to histamine application. This study was aimed to establish whether histamine H2-receptors participated in the changed in vitro reactivity of the airways smooth muscles of cats suffering from experimentally induced airway inflammation. Pretreatment of control tracheal preparations, control and experimental groups of the lung strips by cimetidine did not change the character of the histamine response. Similarly, the amplitude of histamine relaxation, of the tracheal preparations partially contracted by carbachol was unchanged by experimental inflammation. Clemastine significantly shifted the histamine dose-response curves to the right in both groups of lung strips. However, significant differences in lung strip reactivity between control and experimental groups of cats were not eliminated. Our results do not support the role of histamine H2-receptors in the pathologically increased airway reactivity to histamine in vitro.