Relationship Between Airway Wall Thickness In Asthma And Its Severity, Pulmonary Function And Inflammatory Factors

Objective:To study the relationship between airway wall thickness in asthma and its severity,the level of control,lung function and some inflam-matory factors related with airway remodeling including transforming growth factor-β1.Methods:High-resolution CT (HRCT) scaning was performed in 15 asthmatics and 14 healthy controls.The airway diameter(D)and lumen diam-eter(L) were measured at the starting site of the right apical bronchus.Wall thickness to airway diameter(T/D),wall area to total airway cross sectional area(WA%),airway wall thickness(T) and wall area (WA) were calculated by the formula.Asthma was classified as intermittent-mild in 7 patients and moderate-severe in 8 patients,and among them,there were 5 patients in control,4 patients in partial control and 6 patients in uncontrol.Lung func-tion and inflammatory factors also need to test in asthma.Lung function indicators include:forced expiratory volume in 1 second(FEV1),the percen-tage of predicted expiratory volunme in 1 second (FEV1/FVC) and forced mid expiratory flow(FEF25-75%).Inflammatory factors include:high sensitive C reactive protein (hs-CRP),procalcitonin (PCT),transforming growth fact-or-β1(TGF-β1),absolute and percentage of eosinophils(E,E%).Relationships were assessed between the HRCT measurements and its severity,lung funct-ion and inflammatory factors by SPSS software.Results:The normal group has higer T,T/D,WA% than the asthmatic group(P<0.05).Mild-severe asthmatics has higher T/D,WA% than interm-ittent-mild asthmatics and uncontrolled group has higher T/D,WA% than controlled group.But there are no statistical significance between parial controlled group with controlled group,or uncontrolled group.T/D,WA% were positively correlated with the level of control,and there are positively related trends between WA%,T/D with the severity of asthma.However no association was identified between HRCT indexes with lung function and hs-CRP,PCT,TGF-β1,E,E%(P>0.05).Conclusions:The airway wall is thickened in asthmatic group than normal control group.This thickening was positively correlated with severi-ty.HRCT is useful for evaluation and follow-up in asthma.