A Cross-Sectional Study for the Assessment of Fractional Exhaled Nitric Oxide in Children with Atopic Dermatitis and Reactive Airway Disease in Comparison to Healthy Controls

Abstract

Introduction: Nitric oxide (NO) is an important biological mediator of inflammation which is exhaled after being produced in the lungs. Fractional exhaled NO (FENO) is a new tool which measures the amount of NO exhaled. Aims and Objective: The objective of our study was to find the correlation between the FENO levels between atopic dermatitis and asthma patients in comparison to healthy controls and hence identify steroid responsiveness. Methodology: Our study was a cross-sectional observational study performed in a tertiary care hospital involving 150 children (>5–<18 years) who were either attending the outpatient departments or were admitted as inpatients. Relevant history and physical findings were noted and severity scorings were done in the preformed pro forma. Their FENO levels were then recorded and compared. Results: The level of FENO was higher in both bronchial asthma and atopic dermatitis patients as compared to controls. The level of FENO was higher in treatment-naïve patients as compared to treated cases. There was also a strong positive correlation between the levels of FENO and disease severity in both the groups. Conclusion: FENO is a relatively new tool and as such still requires standardization and acceptance in the medical field. It can be a very useful tool in not only identifying these atopic diseases, but it can also act as a prognostic marker as well as a marker for patient compliance. There being a gap in literature related to FENO, hopefully our study will provide some insight to its usefulness.

Keywords

• asthma
• atopic dermatitis
• atopic march
• fractional exhaled nitric oxide
• nitric oxide