TY - JOUR T1 - The impact of bacterial colonisation on airway inflammation in stable COPD JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 40 IS - Suppl 56 SP - P215 AU - Richa Singh AU - Davinder Garcha AU - Anant Patel AU - Alexander Mackay AU - Gavin Donaldson AU - Jadwiga Wedzicha Y1 - 2012/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P215.abstract N2 - Culture-independent approaches are increasingly used for diagnostic microbiology. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) enables accurate assessment of bacterial load in sputum. We hypothesised that the degree of airway inflammation relates to bacterial load in colonised stable COPD patients and may increase over time.Sputa prospectively collected from stable patients in the London COPD Cohort were analysed using qPCR, to detect H. influenzae, M. catarrhalis and S. pneumoniae, and ELISAs for sputum IL-1β and IL-8. 18 patients with bacterial colonisation (detection in two successive stable samples) were included.Mean age was 71.1 years (SD 8.0), FEV1 1.3L (0.5), FEV1 predicted 51.0% (17.5). The mean interval between samples was 217 days (142).Airway inflammation was higher with increasing sputum bacterial load (IL-1β: r=0.448, p=0.006; IL-8: r=0.513, p=0.001, figure 1).There was no change in bacterial load or airway inflammation over time (table 1).View this table:Changes in bacterial load and airway inflammation over timeBacterial load and airway inflammation are stable over time in successive samples. Increasing bacterial load, identified by qPCR, is associated with airway inflammation in stable COPD, suggesting the importance of airway infection in COPD pathogenesis. ER -