Bronchoprovocation or reversibility in asthma patients with normal pulmonary function tests

Abstract

Asthma is a reversible obstructive lung disease, which can be symptom free spontaneously or with the treatment. Thus, no obstruction can be determined in pulmonary function tests though patients are admitted to the physician with clinical symptoms. For the diagnosis of asthma, reversibility and bronchoprovocation tests are used. However patients have symptoms but not physical findings or obstruction in pulmonary function tests, they get better with medication. So, it is thought that there may be reversibility in these cases. In this study 5% or more increase in the initial value of FEV1 following salbutamol inhalation in pulmonary function tests of asthma patients with no obstruction but with clinical findings was considered positive reversibility test (modified reversibility test). Modified reversibility test's specificity and sensitivity was 54% and 55% respectively. As a result, it was concluded that modified reversibility test is not as useful as a diagnostic test as bronchoprovocation in this group of patients.