Researchers of the respiratory medicine department at King George’s Medical University (KGMU) have identified a biomarker to detect asthma which can be a big breakthrough in making the diagnosis of obstructive airway disease easy through a simple blood test.

Till now, spirometry, an effort-based procedure, is being used to diagnose asthma and other respiratory disorders in patients.

The study being conducted by research scholar Seema Singh under the supervision of Prof SK Verma and Prof Santosh Kumar involved monitoring of close to 400 patients.

The analysis and study led to the identification of a biomarker in blood which plays a key role in orchestrating chronic inflammation by activating and promoting the survival of multiple inflammatory cells in the respiratory tract. The study was designed to asses three protein factors—cytokines, Interleukin-6 and Tumor necrosis factor a levels—in patients of obstructive airway diseases.

These were then correlated with severity of disease by spirometric values and consequently protein levels were found to be significantly higher in asthma patients than in healthy persons.

“The research will now be mirrored in a national perspective. It will be big breakthrough since spirometry though a simple testing tool, is effort-based, which makes it difficult to be used on children and old patients suffering from respiratory ailments,” said Prof Kumar.

Spirometry is a simple test used to diagnose the lung condition of a person by measuring the amount of air one can breath out in one forced breath, he explained.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/