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 FEV I was 1.90±0.82SD, mean FVC was 2.17±0.88 SD, mean PEFR was 247.8±122.7 SD and mean FEV 1 /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.