Determinants of response to bronchodilator in patients with cough variant asthma- A randomized, single-blinded, placebo-controlled study.

Background: Not all patients with cough variant asthma (CVA) show responsiveness to bronchodilators (RB) in clinic. Whether there are specific clinical and pathophysiological features can indicate RB in patients with CVA needs further investigation. Thus, we aimed to investigate the RB in patients with CVA and associated factors.

Response to bronchodilator and clinical, pathophysiological features in patients with nonasthmatic eosinophilic bronchitis.

Introduction: Whether nonasthmatic eosinophilic bronchitis (NAEB) shows response to bronchodilator (RB) remains unclear.

Objectives: To investigate the RB and its relationship with clinical and pathophysiological features in NAEB.

Methods: Fifty-one patients with NAEB were assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive oral bambuterol hydrochloride (n = 34, 10 mg, once daily, for 3 days) or matched placebo (n = 17) randomly, of whom 48 patients (32 with bronchodilator and 16 with placebo) completed the study.

Highly reproducible hybridization assay of zeptomole DNA based on adsorption of nanoparticle-bioconjugate.

A nanoparticle-bioconjugate was formed by homogeneous hybridization of one polynucleotide target with two oligonucleotide probes labelled by thiol and a nanoparticle, respectively. Deposition of the nanoparticle-bioconjugate on a gold surface by thiol-gold reaction was monitored in situ by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and applied for flow analysis of zeptomole amounts of polynucleotide. The formation in solution and adsorption of thiolated conjugates on gold could be fast, uniform and effective, and has been successfully exploited to construct a highly reproducible and sensitive platform for detection of target sequences.