Chest
Clinical Investigations: AsthmaPrevalence of Gastroesophageal Reflux Symptoms in Asthma
Section snippets
Patient Selection
Asthma Patients: Consecutive patients, both newly referred and follow-up, attending the Calgary Asthma Clinic over a 10-week period were surveyed. All patients who fulfilled the following criteria for the definition of asthma were included in the study. Patients had at least one of the following: an increase in FEV1 of at least 15% after bronchodilator, spontaneous variability of peak expiratory flow rates (PEFR) or FEV1 of 20% or more, or a positive histamine challenge test and a clinical
RESULTS
One hundred nine of 163 consecutive patients seen in the asthma clinic satisfied the criteria for the diagnosis of asthma (see Materials and Methods section) and comprise the asthma group. Their clinical data and those of the two control groups are presented in Table 2. The mean age, BMI, and gender ratios of the asthma group were similar to those of the control groups. Among the subjects in each group, the mean age, BMI, and gender proportions were similar in the subjects with and without
DISCUSSION
The most important findings of this study are that symptomatic GER is common and that it is associated with respiratory symptoms and β-agonist inhaler use in asthmatics. The questionnaire determined a greater prevalence of reflux symptoms in asthmatics than in two control groups of similar age, gender ratio, BMI, alcohol habits, and tobacco habits.
A recent ambulatory pH monitoring study done in an American Veteran's Administration hospital demonstrated abnormal GER in more than 80% of
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank their colleagues in the University of Calgary Respiratory Division, Drs. D. Coe and N. Wong, for allowing us to study their patients, and nursing and support staff in the asthma clinic (D. Wiebe, C. Hegi, S. Revitt, L. Robertshaw, B. Gawley, E. Berrell, J. Evans) and Alberta. Respiratory Services staff (D. Popil, H. Pischke). We are grateful for Lyndsey Guyn's help with computerization and analysis of the data.
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Presented in abstract form at the Annual Meeting of the American Thoracic Society, Boston, May 22–25, 1994.
accepted September 19.
- †
Salary support in part by the Alberta Lung Association and Fisons Pharmaceuticals (Ms. Underwood).