Differential diagnosis between newly diagnosed asthma and COPD using exhaled breath condensate metabolomics: a pilot study

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are heterogeneous diseases with high pathological burden and healthcare costs [1–3]. In outpatient clinical practice, an accurate differential diagnosis is often very difficult, particularly in adult smokers, requiring specific lung function tests [4, 5]. Since nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) discriminates adults with COPD [6–8] or asthma [9] from healthy subjects, we hypothesised that it is also able to differentiate asthma and COPD patients of different severities.
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: COPD and smoking, Asthma and allergy Original Articles: Research letters Source Type: research