Is atherosklerosi̇s developing risk in patients with asthma?

Abstract

Asthma is an inflammatory disease of the airways and is characterized by attacks of bronchospasm. Atherosclerosis develops as a result of a series of systemic inflammatory processes that begin with arterial endothelial dysfunction. Arteries tend to dilate in hypoxemic conditions Flow-Mediated Dilation (FMD) is a non-invasive, low-cost, straightforward and effective method that was described some 20 years ago, showing endothelial function and therefore a predisposition to atherosclerosis, according to the reflex vasodilation response of the artery after occlusion. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the susceptibility of these patients to atherosclerosis by performing the FMD test in controlled and uncontrolled asthma groups. We included 61 asthma patients in this study and 30 healthy people enrolled thi study as control group. Thirty-two of the patients were uncontrolled, did not receive regular treatment and were not followed up regularly, whereas 29 patients were full symptom control. Pulmonary function tests were performed on all subjects who met the inclusion criteria of the study and gave informed consent. After the pulmonary function test, the right brachial artery diameters of all cases were measured from intima to intima by Doppler USG. FEV1 values were 67.28±9.89% in in patients with uncontrolled astma, and 79±7 in symptom free group of astma patients. The initial brachial artery diameter was 4.40±0.33 and The measurement made after 5 minutes was 4.69±0.296 (p<0.001) in patients with uncontrolled astmatic patents. The difference between these two measurements was 0.29±0.16. FMD tet results in Symptom free patients values were 4.45±03 and 4.81±0.4 respectively (p<0.001). Initial and after measurements difference between symptom free and uncontrolled patients were 0.36±0.16 and 0.29±0.11 p<0.01. There was not statistically significant difference between symptom free patients and healthy group. We have shown that vascular disfunction in symptomatic astma patients with FMD test. Atherosclerosis developing might be higher in asthma patients and this patients should be encourage to regular medicine usage.