PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Yasushi Obase AU - Terufumi Shimoda AU - Mikio Oka AU - Reiko Kishikawa AU - Tomoaki Iwanaga TI - Cough variant asthma may be a incipience of bronchial asthma DP - 2012 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P2341 VI - 40 IP - Suppl 56 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2341.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2341.full SO - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40 AB - Cough variant asthma (CVA) is characterized by chronic cough that persists for more than two months and suggested to be a precursor of bronchial asthma (BA).To analogize if the position of cough variant asthma is early or mild stage of the classical bronchial asthma analyzed according to the airway inflammation, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, airway obstructive damage, newly diagnosed 46 cough variant asthma patients and 57 bronchial asthma patients naive to oral or inhaled corticosteroids and free of asthma execerbation were subjected to spirometry, impulse oscillometry (IOS), bronchial hyperesponsiveness test, induction of sputum, and measurement of fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO).Spirometry revealed lower values of FEV1.0/FVC, FEV1.0 %pred, V50 %pred, and V25 %pred in patients with BA than in those with CVA (p<0.01). Both IOS parameters and FeNO values were significantly higher in patients with BA than in those with CVA (p<0.01). The log PC20 was significantly lower in patients with BA than in those with CVA (p<0.05). Induced sputum eosinophil counts were significantly higher in patients with BA than in those with CVA for both central and peripheral airways (p<0.001). However, the values of IOS, PC20, FeNO, and induced sputum eosinophil counts did not differ significantly between patients with mild intermittent asthma and those with CVA.All measures of central and peripheral airway obstruction, eosinophilic inflammation, and airway hyperresponsiveness were milder in patients with CVA than in those with BA but paralleled with intermittent asthma. Our data suggest that CVA is an allergic and inflammatory precursor of BA.