Eosinophils in the bronchial mucosa in relation to methacholine dose-response curves in atopic asthma.

J Appl Physiol (1985)

Department of Pulmonary Diseases, Erasmus University Rotterdam, University Hospital Dijkzigt, 3015 GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Published: April 1999

Asthma is characterized by both local infiltration of eosinophils in the bronchial mucosa and bronchial hyperreactivity (BHR). A detailed characterization of BHR implies analysis of a histamine or methacholine dose-response curve yielding not only the dose at 20% fall of baseline forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), but also a plateau (P) representing the maximal narrowing response in terms of percent change in FEV1 and reactivity as the steepest slope at 50% of P (%FEV1/doubling dose). In the baseline condition, the specific airway conductance (sGaw) may be considered closely related to airway lumen diameter. In 20 nonsmoking asthmatic patients, methacholine dose-response curves were obtained, and a sigmoid model fit yielded the BHR indexes. Immunohistochemistry with the monoclonal antibodies (EG1 and EG2) was used to recognize the total number of eosinophils and activated eosinophils, respectively. The number of activated eosinophils was significantly correlated to both P (r = 0.62; P < 0.05) and sGaw (r = -0.52; P < 0.05), whereas weaker and nonsignificant correlations were found for dose at 20% fall of baseline FEV1 and the total number of eosinophils. We conclude that the number of activated eosinophils can be considered a marker of the inflammation-induced decrease of airway lumen diameter as represented by the plateau index and sGaw.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jappl.1999.86.4.1352DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

methacholine dose-response
12
activated eosinophils
12
eosinophils bronchial
8
bronchial mucosa
8
dose-response curves
8
dose 20%
8
20% fall
8
fall baseline
8
airway lumen
8
lumen diameter
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!