-
Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Apr 2012
Comparative StudyEarly cystic fibrosis lung disease detected by bronchoalveolar lavage and lung clearance index.
- Yvonne Belessis, Barbara Dixon, Glenn Hawkins, John Pereira, Jenny Peat, Rebecca MacDonald, Penny Field, Andrew Numa, John Morton, Kei Lui, and Adam Jaffe.
- Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sydney Children's Hospital, NSW, Australia. y.belessis@unsw.edu.au
- Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 2012 Apr 15; 185 (8): 862-73.
RationaleUnrecognized airway infection and inflammation in young children with cystic fibrosis (CF) may lead to irreversible lung disease; therefore early detection and treatment is highly desirable.ObjectivesTo determine whether the lung clearance index (LCI) is a sensitive and repeatable noninvasive measure of airway infection and inflammation in newborn-screened children with CF.MethodsForty-seven well children with CF (mean age, 1.55 yr) and 25 healthy children (mean age, 1.26 yr) underwent multiple-breath washout testing. LCI within and between-test variability was assessed. Children with CF also had surveillance bronchoalveolar lavage performed.Measurements And Main ResultsThe mean (SD) LCI in healthy children was 6.45 (0.49). The LCI was higher in children with CF (7.21 [0.81]; P < 0.001). The upper limit of normal for the LCI was 7.41. Fifteen (32%) children with CF had an elevated LCI. LCI measurements were repeatable and reproducible. Airway infection was present in 17 (36%) children with CF, including 7 (15%) with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Polymicrobial growth was associated with worse inflammation. The LCI was higher in children with Pseudomonas (7.92 [1.16]) than in children without Pseudomonas (7.02 [0.56]) (P = 0.038). The LCI correlated with bronchoalveolar lavage IL-8 (R(2) = 0.20, P = 0.004) and neutrophil count (R(2) = 0.21, P = 0.001). An LCI below the upper limit of normality had a high negative predictive value (93%) in excluding Pseudomonas.ConclusionsThe LCI is elevated early in CF, especially in the presence of Pseudomonas and airway inflammation. The LCI is a feasible, repeatable, and sensitive noninvasive marker of lung disease in young children with CF.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:

- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.