ENFUMOSA (courriel: Chanez (at) montp.inserm.fr ) The European Network For Understanding Mechanisms of Severe Asthma BIOMED 2 Program - European Commission 4th quaterly meeting, with the support of INSERM and Merck Sharp & Dhome Laboratory February 13-14th 1998 in Montpellier- France (see programm, abstracts and experts comments )

Airway Responsiveness to Bradykinin
Is Related to Eosinophilic Inflammation in Asthma
GABRIEL L. ROlSMAN, JACQUES G. LACRONIQUE,
NADINE DESMAZES-DUFEU, CHRISTIAN CARRÉ,
ARIANE LE CAE, and DANIEL J. DUSSER
Service de Pneumologie, U.F.R. Cochin-Port-Royal,
Université René Descartes, Paris, France

We investigated the relationship between airway inflammation and airway responsiveness, as assessed by PD's, to methacholine and to bradykinin in asthmatic patients. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), bronchial biopsies, and methacholine and bradykinin challenges were performed in 18 nonsmoking subjects with mild or moderate perennial asthma. Bradykinin PD's correlated negatively with eosinophil count in BAL (p < 0.05), in the epithelium (p < 0.05), in the lamina propria (p = 0.02) and in the total submucosa (p < 0.01). Conversely, no significant correlation existed between airway responsiveness to methacholine and eosinophil count in BAL or in airway mucosa. Airway responsiveness to either agonist did not correlate with the thickness of the basement membrane, the shedding of the airway epithelium, the count of Iymphacytes in the airway mucosa, or the percentage of neutrophils, Iymphocytes, and macrophages in BAL. The presence of degranulated eosinophils was associated with an increased number of eosinophils in the airway epithellum (p = 0.04), in the lamina propria (p = 0.03), in the total submucosa (p = 0.02), and with increased airway responsiveness to bradykinin (p < 0.02). We conclude that in asthmatic patients, airway responsiveness to bradykinin but not to methacholine is related to the magnitude of eosinophilic inflammation in the airway macosa.