BRONCHIAL ASTHMA

DURATION OF ASTHMA IS NOT CORRELATED WITH TOTAL ANTI OXIDANT CAPACITY AND LUNG FUNCTION PARAMETERS

Abstract

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways, which is associated
with excessive airway narrowing in response to stimuli that have little or no effect on healthy
subjects. Airway hyper-responsiveness with a short duration of asthma is coupled with airway
inflammation which may or may not be associated with lung impairment. Objectives: To study
correlation of asthma duration with total anti oxidant capacity and lung function parameters.
Design: Cross sectional study. Period: June 2013 to Dec 2013. Setting: Baqai Medical
University and Hospital. Methodology: A total of 92 known and diagnosed cases of asthma
meeting the inclusion criteria were recruited in the study. The subjects included both male and
female with age ranging from 16-70 years. Portable handheld electronic Spirometer was used
for performing spirometry. FRAP assay was done to measure TAC according to the method of
Benzie and Strai. Results: The mean age of patients (n-92) was 34.88±12.14 SD. The mean
duration of asthma was 11.57 ± 11.30 SD years. Mean value of TAC was found to be 11.46
± 4.34SD. Mean FEVI was 1.90±0.82SD, mean FVC was 2.17±0.88 SD, mean PEFR was
247.8±122.7 SD and mean FEV1/FVC was 86.21±16.58 SD. Paired sample t – test was applied
to compare the spirometric values which were found highly significant. Pearson correlation
was applied and showed negative but insignificant correlation of asthma duration with patients’
FEV1, FEV1/FVC and PEFR as well as insignificant correlation with other spirometric parameters
and TAC. Conclusion: Our study showed that duration of asthma has no significant correlation
with lung function parameters and antioxidant capacity.