Exhaled Breath Biomarkers in Acute Asthma: A Feasibility Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exhaled Breath Biomarkers in Acute Asthma: A Feasibility Study
IRAS ID
197935
Contact name
Adam M. Peel
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of East Anglia
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
16/LO/0639, REC number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways. Existing ways of assessing asthma (such as peak flow meters) tell us about lung function and how well people are breathing but they don’t actually tell us how inflamed their airways are nor what the most appropriate treatment is. Measuring inflammation and other biomarkers might give us useful information about how severe an attack is (or might become), and what treatment might be most appropriate. Similarly, we know that although asthma attacks may be triggered by a bacterial infection these make up only a small minority of cases; despite this many patients receive antibiotics because we lack quick and easy tests to determine whether bacterial infection is involved or not. A reliable bedside test might allow doctors to use antibiotics more selectively.
Every time a person exhales, they breathe out water vapour and various gases; dissolved in the water vapour are different substances that come from the lining of the airways. We hope that by capturing and examining these gases and other substances during an asthma attack we can discover which ones provide the most reliable and useful information for guiding treatment and managing patients. There is a growing body of research in this field; this PhD study aims to determine the feasibility of conducting such a study in the acute hospital setting. We plan to measure markers in patients attending the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital both during an asthma exacerbation and when their asthma is controlled. We will be using and comparing three different devices which collect the breath contents for analysis. In the future these tests may have a place in the standard monitoring of patients with asthma so we also want to discover what patients think of these collection devices, particularly in the acute setting.REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/0639
Date of REC Opinion
1 Jul 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion