Introduction. The problem of controlling bronchial asthma in adolescents remains relevant, and its monitoring is more difficult than in other age categories, since during the period of long-term remission the disease can be accompanied by signs of bronchial hyperreactivity to nonspecific irritants, and pulmonary ventilation disorders can have a «latent» character, persisting much longer than the clinical symptoms of the disease, which leads to tactical errors in determining the level of bronchial asthma control and is a risk factor for its progression.
Aim: to develop a method for assessing the level of bronchial asthma control in adolescents, when there are no clinical, anamnestic and functional signs of insufficient control of asthma, by using a quality of life questionnaire and an additional bronchodilatory test.
Materials and methods. The study included 43 adolescents with mild (41.9 %) and moderate (58.1 %) controlled bronchial asthma. To identify cases of «latent» bronchospasm, a bronchodilatory test with salbutamol was performed and the increase in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) was calculated. In the case of an increase in FEV1 ≥ 12.0 %, the presence of «latent» bronchospasm was confirmed. If the increase in FEV1 turned out to be < 12.0 %, a questionnaire was performed using the Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) and if the value of the integral indicator of the overall quality of life PAQLQ ≤ 6.5 points, an additional bronchodilator test with a combined bronchodilator (fenoterol / ipratropium bromide).
Results. The absence of changes in the initial levels of spirometric parameters was found in all 43 patients (FEV1 > 80.0 %). When carrying out a bronchodilatory test with salbatamol, 7 patients (16.3 %) with a positive response (increase in FEV1 ≥ 12.0 %) were identified, which indicated cases of «latent» bronchospasm and partial control of asthma, and 36 people (83.7 %) with a negative answer (increase in FEV1 < 12.0 %). Among 36 patients with an increase in FEV1 < 12.0 % in the test with salbutamol applied the PAQLQ questionnaire and identified 24 people or 66.7 % with an overall quality of life of ≤ 6.5 points, which reflected the negative impact of adolescents asthma on the quality of life and lack of complete asthma control. This was confirmed in 7 out of 24 people (29.2 %) in an additional bronchodilatory test with a combined bronchodilator, in which they gave a positive response (increase in FEV1 ≥ 12.0 %; r = -0.4, p = 0.02). The reasons for the decrease in the overall quality of life of ≤ 6.5 points in the remaining 17 adolescents were due to psychoemotional states or vegetative-vascular dysfunction, and not to the latent course of «latent» bronchospasm. As a result, among 43 adolescents, 14 patients or 32.6 % with «latent» bronchospasm were found. At the same time, the relative risk of a positive patient response to a bronchodilator test with a combined bronchodilator was 2.1 times higher than during a bronchodilator test with salbutamol (OR = 2.1, 95 % CI 1.1–7.0).
Conclusions. Conducting bronchodilatory tests with bronchodilators of various pharmacological groups and questioning patients using the PAQLQ questionnaire on the quality of life makes it possible to establish cases of «latent» bronchospasm even with a negative response to salbutamol, when there are no clinical and anamnestic signs of insufficient asthma control and the FEV1 index exceeds 80.0 % of proper values.
Keywords: adolescents, bronchial asthma, control, bronchospasm.
