The association between serum apolipoprotein B and fractional exhaled nitric oxide in bronchial asthma patients

• Published in: Journal of thoracic disease 2021-07, Vol.13 (7), p.4195-4206
• Main Authors: Heo, Jung Won, Lee, Hwa Young, Han, Solji, Kang, Hye Seon, Kwon, Soon Seog, Lee, Sook Young
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Original
• ISSN: 2072-1439; 2077-6624
• DOI: 10.21037/jtd-20-3314

Asthma and lipid metabolism are associated with systemic inflammation. However, the studies about the relationship between lipid profile, fractional exhaled nitric acid (FeNO) and pulmonary function test (PFT) results are currently lacking. We enrolled asthma patients who had serum lipid profiles including apolipoprotein levels from March 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. We classified the asthma patients into two groups according to the diagnosis method: (I) patients who were diagnosed based on clinical symptoms/signs and PFT results and (II) patients diagnosed with clinical symptoms/signs. Clinical characteristics including age, underlying diseases, smoking status, allergy test results and treatment agents were compared between the two groups. The associations between blood cholesterol levels including apolipoprotein and pulmonary functions were analyzed. Moreover, patients were divided into two groups according to the median value of apolipoprotein B (Apo B), and lung function test results were compared between the patients who had high and low Apo B levels. Among the 167 patients, 93 (55.7%) were PFT-proven asthma patients. In PFT-proven asthma patients, the levels of total cholesterol (TC) (r =0.37, P=0.03), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) (r =0.46, P=0.01) and Apo B (r =0.38, P=0.02) showed a significant correlation with FeNO, which had no statistical significance in physician-diagnosed asthma group. In multivariate regression analysis, log (FeNO) showed a significant correlation with Apo B (P