We use this simple test in many of our current and completed asthma research studies and have several of the machines within our unit for use in both our research and patients clinical care within the Severe Asthma Service. Our current asthma clinical research includes our "Low NO" study, is looking at using FeNO to see if it can give a better indication as to whether a steroid inhaler will work for patients with suspected asthma.
The utilisation of FeNO was also in the news this week and featured on BBC Radio 4 "Inside Health" programme with Professor Ian Pavord talking about using FeNO measurement in severe asthma.
Professor Pavord explained;
"Nitric Oxide is produced by the lining of the airway when it's inflamed and luckily for us it's only the sort of inflammation that we see in Asthma that causes increase in Nitric Oxide in the breath. So the finding of increased Nitric Oxide in the breath is a very specific indicator of Asthmatic type inflammation, we call it type 2 inflammation in fact, that's the correct term."
"So what we firmly believe, and there is already evidence that this is the case, is that we need to extend the assessments we do with people with asthma and other airways disease to include measurements of how inflamed their airways are and in doing that where we were able to make much better, much more precise treatment decisions.