Asthma and Exhaled Nitric Oxide (eNO)

A Simple, New Breath Test to Help Manage Asthma

Asthma is characterized by airwayinflammation

When airways get inflamed, the inner walls of the airway swell,so there is less space for a smooth flow of air. Inflammation ofthe airways leads symptoms such as shortness of breath,wheezing and coughing.The primary focus of asthma treatment is to reduceinflammation. Unfortunately, current methods of testing lungfunction do not measure inflammation. Therefore, you have tocorrelate symptoms to disease severity when prescribing oradjusting medication.

Regular monitoring of eNO provides a more completepicture of your asthma

Adding eNO tests to other standard clinicalmeasures gives you a better picture ofyour patients’ airway inflammation. Thiscan help improve asthma control. Byregularly monitoring your eNO levels,you can treat your patients’ asthmamore precisely.

Exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) provides a new way tomeasure inflammation

Inflamed airways produce nitric oxide which becomes part of your breath.Exhaled nitric oxide has been studied well over the last 10 years. Thesestudies have shown a strong relation between eNO and airway inflammation.Exhaled nitric oxide (eNO) increases as inflammation increases, and itdecreases as inflammation decreases.Simple breath tests are now available to measure eNO levels. Your patientssimply breathe out steadily into a breath tube that is connected to the testdevice. The test itself takes just about 10 seconds. The results are availablewithin one minute.

As airwayinflammation increases,eNO increases.

(Level of Exhaled Nitric Oxide)

l o w h i g h h i g h e r

e N O

Time

Patient has highinflammationInflammation dropsover time aftertreatment is adjusted