SummaryThe influence on airway conductance of inhaled aerosols of prostaglandin F2c (PGF2oc), histamine, and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was studied in 10 patients with spirometrically reversible bronchial asthma and in 10 healthy subjects with no history of lung disorder. Both groups responded with bronchoconstriction after inhalation of PGF,oc but the asthmatic patients were about 8,000 times more sensitive to the compound than were the healthy controls. In the patients, but not in the controls, PGF2x often caused a long-standing decrease in airway conductance with symptoms resembling allergen-provoked asthmatic attacks. On the other hand, the patients showed less than a 10-fold increase in sensitivity to histamine, and the ratio of histamine: PGF2,x doses causing a 50%o decrease of airway conductance was 2 6:1 and 2,400:1 in controls and patients respectively. Inhalation of PGE2 while moderately but consistently increasing airway conductance in controls, had a variable -occasionally slight bronchoconstrictive-effect in patients. The decrease in airway conductance by a given dose of PGFcc was little modified by the simultaneous inhalation ofa 100-times higher PGE, dose. It is suggested that endogenous, locally formed PGF2La may play an important part in the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma.

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