Small Airway function in obesity and asthma study

Rationale: in asthma patients small airway dysfunction is associated with worse symptom control and higher number of exacerbations. Recent studies in obese asthmatic patients show that weight loss improves asthma symptoms and concurrent improvement in small airway function. This could be of clinical importance as extra-fine inhalation medication is available to target this compartment of the lung. However, no gold standard exists to assess small airway function and no study directly compared several tests of small airway function in asthmatic patients with or without obesity.


Objective: to compare small airway function in asthmatic patients with obesity to asthmatic patients without obesity


Study design: single center cross-sectional


Study population: 80 patients with asthma ≥6 months, with or without obesity


Main study parameters/endpoints: small airway function as tested by multiple pulmonary function tests.


Nature and extent of the burden and risks associated with participation, benefit and group relatedness: This study includes three study visits at the Leiden University Medical Center. During the first visit participants will be subjected to measurement of vital signs, questionnaires will be filled out to obtain information regarding medical history and demography and blood will be drawn. Furthermore pulmonary function tests will be performed, distributed over visit one and two. Finally, sputum collection will take place at visit three.

Small airway function differs in obese and non-obese asthmatic patients

cross-sectional

no intervention