Whole blood chemiluminescence as a systemic inflammatory parameter in asthma

Abstract Blood phagocytes from patients with asthma not treated with antiinflammatory drugs have an increased capacity to produce reactive oxygen metabolites. We studied the phenomenon in a group of patients with asthma receiving inhaled steroids with whole blood chemiluminescence (CL), a simple reactive oxygen metabolite assay suitable for routine use. There was no difference in CL values between patients with stable asthma and no current obstruction ( n = 19; mean CL ± SD=26.01 ± 6.51 mV × min) and healthy control subjects ( n = 20; mean CL ± SD=27.37 ± 6.15 mV × min), whereas the patients with asthma and current obstruction ( n = 27) had significantly higher CL responses (mean CL ± SD=41.10 ± 14.79 mV × min) than both the patients with nonobstructive asthma and the healthy control subjects ( p r = −0.47). When the CL values were corrected for the number of phagocytes present in the reactions, the patients with nonobstructive asthma had significantly lower values than the healthy control subjects ( p