TY  - JOUR
A1  - Koç-Günel, Sinem
A1  - Schubert, Ralf
A1  - Zielen, Stefan
A1  - Rosewich, Martin
T1  - Cell distribution and cytokine levels in induced sputum from healthy subjects and patients with asthma after using different nebulizer techniques
T2  - BMC pulmonary medicine
N2  - Background: Sputum induction is an important noninvasive method for analyzing bronchial inflammation in patients with asthma and other respiratory diseases. Most frequently, ultrasonic nebulizers are used for sputum induction, but breath-controlled nebulizers may target the small airways more efficiently. This treatment may produce a cell distribution similar to bronchoalveolar lavage (less neutrophils and more macrophages) and provide deeper insights into the underlying lung pathology. The goal of the study was to compare both types of nebulizer devices and their efficacy in inducing sputum to measure bronchial inflammation, i.e., cell composition and cytokines, in patients with mild allergic asthma and healthy controls.
Methods: The population of this study consisted of 20 healthy control subjects with a median age of 17 years, range: 8–25 years, and 20 patients with a median age of 12 years, range: 8–24 years, presenting with mild, controlled allergic asthma who were not administered an inhaled steroid treatment. We induced sputum in every individual using both devices on two separate days. The sputum weight, the cell composition and cytokine levels were analyzed using a cytometric bead assay (CBA) and by real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR).
Results: We did not observe significant differences in the weight, cell distribution or cytokine levels in the sputum samples induced by both devices. In addition, the Bland-Altman correlation revealed good concordance of the cell distribution. As expected, eosinophils and IL-5 levels were significantly elevated in patients with asthma.
Conclusions: The hypothesis that sputum induction with a breath-controlled "smart" nebulizer is more efficient and different from an ultrasonic nebulizer was not confirmed. The Bland-Altman correlations showed good concordance when comparing the two devices.
Trial registration: NCT01543516 Retrospective registration date: March 5, 2012.
KW  - Induced sputum
KW  - Bronchial inflammation
KW  - Cell distribution
KW  - Smart nebulizer
KW  - Ultrasonic nebulizer
KW  - Allergic asthma
KW  - Cytokines
Y1  - 2018
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/47120
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-471202
SN  - 1471-2466
N1  - Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
VL  - 18
IS  - 1, Art. 115
SP  - 1
EP  - 7
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -