Exhaled Nitric Oxide Shows Promise For COPD

With the use of exhaled nitric oxide blossoming as a diagnostic and management tool on the asthma front, researchers now are exploring applications in other pulmonary diseases. Some respiratory specialists believe it has all the star-quality characteristics they look for in a lung-assessment tool - a noninvasive device that offers convenience, ease of use, and reliability at an affordable cost.

"It's still early and it's difficult at this point to say how it's going to end up, but I think the whole field of exhaled breath analysis is growing, and it's going to become more and more important," said Philip O'Reilly, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

As the field has gained momentum, the race to find new applications has too. A handful of small European trials have investigated a range of potential uses for eNO in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - from predicted corticosteroid response to identification of exacerbations. They have not produced any winning results yet; however, investigators suggest eNO could be a useful clinical tool in COPD for certain patient populations.

Clinicians would need a special machine to measure eNO at different points in exhalation instantaneously, but Dr. O'Reilly noted the standard devices on the market can provide an average eNO measure across the range of expiration.

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