Does the expired-air carbon monoxide level reflect the severity of inflammation in COPD?

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study is to evaluate the expired-air carbon monoxide level which relates to the severity of inflammation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). DESIGN: Cross sectional study. SETTING: Cukurova University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Chest Disease, Out-patient clinic. PATIENTS The characteristics of patients enrolled in this study were following; 20 ex-smokers with stable COPD (mean age 68.8 +/- 7.2 years, FEV1 45.6 +/- 16.6% of predicted), 22 current smokers with stable COPD (mean age 58.7 +/- 8.2 years, FEVI 57.5 +/- 20.9% of predicted), 20 healthy smokers (mean age 55.916.0 years, FEVI 86.7 +/- 14.2% of predicted), and 20 healthy non-smokers (mean age 60.8 +/- 9.2 years, FEV1 95.3 +/- 13.5% of predicted). INTERVENTION CO level was measured in expired-air. MEAAUREMENT AND RESULTS: The measurement of expired-air CO level was measured by DisCOver, carbon monoxide analyser. It is known that the level of expired-air carbon monoxide in healthy smokers (11.8 +/- 6.4 ppm) and in current smokers with COPD (11.1 +/- 7.4 ppm) is higher than in healthy non-smokers (1.70.7 ppm) and in ex-smokers with COPD (2.0 +/- 1.8 ppm) (p = 0.0001). CONCLUSION: We assumed that the level of expired-air carbon monoxide may not useful in assessing the severity of inflammation in COPD (Tab. 1, Fig. 2, Ref. 23).