© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group & British Thoracic Society
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Exacerbations of COPD are an important cause of morbidity in COPD and affect disease progression. There is therefore a need to study the inflammatory mechanisms of exacerbations and, as biopsy studies are difficult at exacerbation, non-invasive measurements are essential. In this issue of Thorax Biernacki and colleagues describe the measurement of the inflammatory mediator leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and 8-isoprostane as a marker of oxidative stress, both in exhaled breath condensate. This study is particularly welcome as it has been performed exclusively in primary care and shows that these measurements are feasible in the community. All the exacerbations had the three major criteria of increased dyspnoea, sputum volume and purulence. Oral steroids were not used as the exacerbations were not considered to be sufficiently severe. At exacerbation, rises were seen in the exhaled markers which decreased by 2 weeks and had fallen further by 2 months, emphasising the important point that
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Griffiths, M. J.D., Evans, T. W.
(2005). Inhaled Nitric Oxide Therapy in Adults. NEJM
353: 2683-2695
[Full Text]
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