Correlations Between Cytology And Levels Of Eotaxin, IL-8 The Sputum Of Patients With Asthma And Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Backgroung Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide, and the prevalence is still rising .Asthma and COPD are both common pulmonary inflammatory diseases. Although both are characterised physiologically by airflow limitation, this tends to be irreversible in COPD while in asthma it is largely reversible, either spontaneously or after bronchodilator administration. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder characterized by reversible airway obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and infiltration of the airways by activated inflammatory cells, particularly eosinophils,. Eotaxin is a chemokine belonging to the CC family and was initially isolated from lung lavage fluid of a guinea pig model of allergic disease.It has been shown to be a potent chemoattractant for eosinophils both in vitro and in vivo. Eotaxin is believed to be critically involved in the pathogenesis of airway eosinophilic inflammatory diseases. COPD is a debilitating inflammatory disease of the lungs characterized by an increased presence of neutrophils and macrophages in the airways of affected patients. Neutrophilic inflammation is an important feature of COPD and may contribute to mucus hypersecretion and destruction of alveoli. Recruitment of neutrophils to the airways involves chemotactic stimuli such as interleukin (IL)-8 with subsequent migration into the airways and alveoli. The role of these chemokines need to be defined. Recent studies have reported that airway inflammation assessed using thenon-invasive but valid technique of sputum induction was well tolerated and successful. Induced sputum is increasingly used to monitor inflammatory airway diseases.Objective Our aim was to survey the characteristics of airway inflammation in asthma and COPD patients, and to assess the interrelations among inflammatory cells, chemokine- eotaxin, IL-8 , bronchodilator reversibility, and pulmonary function.Methods: Sputum supernatant of 24 patients with asthma, 23 patients with COPD,and 10 health subjects were analyzed . Pulmonary function were performed first. Sputum induction was performed by inhalation of hypertonic saline solution (4%NaCl) after premedication with inhaled salbutamol, 400 μg, All slides were air-dried and stained with Leishman stain. Two independent observers counted at least 200 inflammatory cells on each slide. Inflammatory markers interleukin (IL)-8 and eotaxin were measured in sputum supernatant using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Albumin levels were measured in the supernatant of induced sputum by radioimmunoassay kit with a sensitivity of 0.2 μg/mL.Results: There were more famale subjucts in both groups. Most of the asthmatics were in mild, moderate exacerbations with moderate reversible airflow limitation. There were more aged subjects in COPD group with long term disease and severe irreversible airflow limitation. Sputum induction were relatively noninvasive, well tolerated and can be applied safely, with care, even in more severe exacerbations of asthma and severe COPD. Induced sputum examination could be applied at random and repeatedly and gave results that were reproducible and valid. (1) Increased levels of eotaxin had been measured in sputum of asthma group (5.53 ± 3.05 pg/ml) compared with controls (2.77±1.76 pg/ml, p<0.005) and COPD group (3.25 ± 1.99 pg/ml, p<0.05 ) . Moreover ,the sputum levels of eotaxin in moderate,severe subjects(n=13, 8.9879 ± 2.2459pg/ml) were higher than that of mild asthmatics (n=11, 3.0879 ± 1.8001pg/ml,t=20542,p