Source: Annual Congress 2010 - COPD: treatment and monitoring
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

Exhaled breath condensate (EBC) pH has been proposed as a non-invasive marker of airway inflammation. However, previous studies did not take into account the effect of CO₂ as an important confounding factor. In this study we assessed EBC pH in patients hospitalized with an exacerbation of asthma or chronic obstructive airway disease (COPD). EBC pH was measured by the CO₂ gas standardization method (Kullmann et al. ERJ 2007).
EBC pH, fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FENO), lung function and blood gases were measured in 20 non-smoking asthmatics, 21 smoking and 17 ex-smoking COPD patients at hospital admission with an exacerbation of the disease, and at discharge following treatment. EBC pH was also assessed in 18 smoking and 18 non-smoking healthy controls. Data are presented as mean±SEM.
As expected, lung function, as well as blood gases improved throughout hospitalization in both diseases. FENO levels were also significantly decreased during treatment (p<0.05). In asthmatics, EBC pH was significantly decreased at the time of exacerbation compared to non-smoking controls (6.24±0.03 vs. 6.41±0.04, p<0.01) and increased along with treatment (6.33±0.03, p<0.05). In COPD patients, EBC pH remained unchanged during exacerbation, both in smokers (exacerbation: 6.29±0.03, after treatment: 6.33±0.03, smoking controls: 6.31±0.03; p>0.05) and ex-smokers (exacerbation: 6.39±0.04, after treatment: 6.38±0.03, non-smoking controls: 6.41±0.04; p>0.05). Nevertheless, EBC collected from smokers was more acidic than that from ex-smokers (p<0.05).
Our data suggest that exacerbation of asthma but not of COPD is associated with acidification of EBC when the EBC pH is determined by the most precise way at present.

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B. Antus, I. Barta, T. Kullmann, Z. Lazar, M. Valyon, I. Horvath, E. Csiszer (Budapest, Hungary). Assessment of exhaled breath condensate pH in asthma and COPD patients with exacerbation. Eur Respir J 2010; 36: Suppl. 54, 1329

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