Measurement of the total antioxidant potential in chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases with a novel automated method.

Objective: To determine the oxidative and antioxidative status of plasma of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and to compare these values with healthy smokers and healthy non-smokers control subjects using a more recently developed automated measurement method.

Methods: This study involved 40 COPD patients, 25 healthy smokers, and 25 healthy non-smokers who attended the Chest Diseases Outpatient Clinic in Harran University Research Hospital, Turkey during the period between March 2006 and June 2006. We calculated the total antioxidant potential (TAOP) to determine the antioxidative status of plasma, and we measured the total peroxide levels to determine the oxidative status of plasma.

Results: The TAOP of plasma was significantly lower in patients with COPD than in healthy smokers and healthy non-smokers (p<0.001). In contrast, the mean total peroxide level of plasma was significantly higher in COPD patients than in healthy smokers and healthy non-smokers (p<0.001).

Conclusion: We found a decreased in TAOP COPD patients using a simple, rapid and reliably automated colorimetric assay, which may suitable for use in routine clinical biochemistry laboratory, and considerably facilitates the assessment of this useful clinical parameter. We suggest that this novel method may be used as a routine test to evaluate and follow-up the levels of oxidative stress in COPD.