Medical Progress Office-based Objective Measures in Childhood Asthma

A sthma is among the most common chronic childhood diseases affecting 6 million children in the United States. 1 Despite better understanding of the pathogenesis and advances in the treatment of this disease, asthma continues to be a leading cause of school absences, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations in children. Although there are many reasons for the substantial morbidity rate associated with asthma, 1 reason stems from the fact that objective monitoring of asthma is not widely performed. The purpose of this review is to provide clinicians with an up-to-date review of the 2 most commonly used office-based lung function measures, peak expiratory flow (PEF) and spirometry, in childhood asthma. In addition, a novel noninvasive measure of inflammation, exhaled nitric oxide, will also be discussed. It is hoped that by increasing the number of tools we have to assess asthma, we can improve the quality of life in patients with asthma, while reducing morbidity and mortality rates.