Asthma tests in the assessment of military conscripts

Abstract

BPT with mannitol has a sensitivity and specificity similar to methacholine for the diagnosis of physician-diagnosed asthma in military conscripts but is less costly to perform without the need to use and maintain a nebulizer.

Role of bronchoprovocation tests in identifying exercise-induced bronchoconstriction in a non-athletic population: a pilot study

“…It is possible that the MCT is detecting the subjects from the asthmatic group, whereas the international recommendations were based on studies largely recruiting elite athletes and hence having different pathogenetic mechanisms. Prior studies carried out using MCT in asthmatic subjects had variable results for sensitivity ranging from 51-87.7% (10,14,15), which was slightly lower than our documented sensitivities ( Table 2). These differences could possibly stem from different PC 20 cut-off values used in each study as we have also documented that using PC 20 <8 mg/mL and PC 20 <16 mg/mL, there were differences in sensitivities (88.9% vs. 100%) and specificities (83.3% vs. 66.7%) respectively.…”

The Clinical Utility of Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) in Asthma Management

“…Since the risk of bias was unclear or high in about half of the studies, the SOE was rated down to moderate. Using Deeks' funnel plot asymmetry tests and visual inspection of funnel plots, we found potential publication bias for cutoffs<20, and no indication of publication bias for cutoffs [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] (Appendix Figures D.10-11). We were not able to evaluate potential publication bias for other cutoffs.…”

“…For clinical utility and harm questions, we used the DerSimonian-Laird random effects model with the Knapp and Hartung adjustment of the variance. 26 We evaluated heterogeneity between studies using the I 2 indicator; we examined potential publication bias by evaluating funnel plots symmetry and Deeks' funnel plot asymmetry tests if the number of studies was large (n>20).…”

Diagnostic properties of the methacholine and mannitol bronchial challenge tests: A comparison study

“…All participants underwent methacholine bronchial challenge test and mannitol challenge test on differ-ent days, separated by least 24 h, as in previous reports. 7,10 All asthmatic patients stopped their antiasthma medications before the tests according to the predetermined protocols (Table S1). The protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Seoul National University Hospital.…”