| Popis: |
Introduction and aim: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways and therfore requires regular control and reevaluation. In the last few years there is an increasing interest in noninvasive measuring possibilities of the level of airway inflammation in asthmatic patients such as exhaled breath temperature. The aim of this study was to examine the importance of exhaled breath temperature as a new and noninvasive method wich could prove as a posibly useful tool in the assessment of children with asthma. Methods: This study included 51 patients, children with previously diagnosed asthma, aged 5-15 from Croatia treated at Children's hospital Srebrnjak. An X-Halo thermometer device was used to determine the peek breath temperature values. Patients were divided into 2 main groups - patients without asthma or airway inflammation (control group) and patients with asthma. The second group was divided into two subgroups - asthma with and without exacerbation. Additionally, FeNO and routine blood tests of patients had been analised to determine other possible underlaying factors. Results: Results show that there is a statistically signifficant difference between the exhaled breath temperatures of patients with asthma and those with asthma exacerbations (p=0, 022). The mean values of exhaled breath temperatures were: Asthma =33, 07047619 Asthma with exacerbation = 33, 81619048, Control group = 33, 24666667. No statistical significance was found within the two subgroups of asthmatic patients and patients from the control group (p>0, 05). Additionally no corelation between other factors (blood eosinophil count, basophil count, CRP, FeNO) has been detected in our study (p>0, 05). Conclusion: As we hypothesised there exists a significant difference between measured exhalation breath temperatures (as a means to determine airway inflammation) of asthmatic patients with well controlled asthma and those with acute asthma exacerbations. Therefore this method could prove as a useful tool for evaluation and follow up of children with asthma. The reason for the lack of correlation between these two groups and the control group might be caused by the therapy used in asthmatic patients, but sholud be further evaluated. An even broader analysis of the underlaying factors and clinical manifestations of different asthma phenotypes should also be considered. |
