Active clinical trials for "Asthma, Exercise-Induced"

The overall aim of this study is to determine if face masks that can warm and humidify air can improve overall asthma control and markers of airway health during exercise in cold dry environments. We will investigate the potential protective benefits of the face masks against exercise induced asthma during 1) a "one-off" bout of exercise in a cold dry environment and 2) over the course of a four week period, exercising three times per week in a cold dry environment.

Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) is a condition where airways tighten when you exercise and may cause coughing, wheezing, or shortness of breath. In many patients, this condition can cause lung function to drop making it harder to breath. An instrument called a spirometer is commonly used to measure lung function. This traditional means of assessing lung function in asthma is limited in its ability to provide information as to where in the lung the tightness is. Hyperpolarized helium magnetic resonance imaging (3He MRI) is a novel way to see the where air is going in the lungs using an MRI and special gas. The ability to see where the air can and cannot reach in the lungs may help show more accurately if a medication is working to make the asthma better. The purpose of this study is to examine patients with EIB in order to see if 3He MRI provides a better way to measure lung function. Patients will be given either montelukast sodium, a drug to improve the ability to breath with EIB, or placebo and then put on a treadmill to induce an occurrence of airway constriction. The patient's lung function will be measured more than once using both the spirometer and the 3He MRI.

The purpose of this study is to compare the exercise-challenge in a cold chamber at 2-4°C to the gold standard the metacholine challenge in subjects showing symptoms of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction. The sensitivity and repeatability of the exercise test will be measured.

The purpose of this research is to assess the association between diet and pulmonary function during standardized EIB testing. Determine the effect of Vitamin C supplementation on airway inflammatory markers and bronchoconstriction after a standardized EIB test compared to usual diet and placebo control.

Exercise is an important clinical feature in cystic fibrosis. Better exercise capacity has been associated with better patient outcomes and quality of life. Exercise-induced bronchospasm is a condition, often associated with asthma, which may make exercise difficult. The role that exercise-induced bronchospasm has in people with cystic fibrosis is unknown. This study is designed to determine how often exercise-induced bronchospasm occurs in cystic fibrosis.

This research is being conducted to help us better understand what causes exercise induced asthma. The investigators hypothesize that two types of chemicals, cysteinyl leukotrienes and adenosine, play an important role. The investigators will be measuring these chemicals in the exhaled breath of volunteers with exercise induced asthma as they undergo a test to mimic exercise induced asthma. The investigators will determine how the levels of these chemicals change in association with how lung function changes before, during and after an episode of exercise induced asthma.

Exercise induced bronchospasm (EIB), also known as exercise induced asthma (EIA) is a transient obstruction to airflow triggered by exertion. It is now a well known identity, center of discussion in recent years, particularly in the athletes' world. It is more common in asthmatic individuals (regardless of severity of disease), but it is also seen in otherwise healthy subjects, leading to the general consensus that the pathophysiology is different than asthma. The concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) in various airway & respiratory disorders, particularly asthma, has been deeply studied. Its use for noninvasive monitoring of asthma control (reflecting airway eosinophilic inflammation) is being closely examined and put into clinical practice. FeNO is significantly elevated in asthma. Elevated FeNO levels have also been noted in patients hospitalized with a COPD exacerbation, acidosis, rhinitis, bronchiectasis, active pulmonary sarcoidosis, active fibrosing alveolitis, and acute lung allograft rejection. Decreased FeNO levels have been seen in patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia, cystic fibrosis, PiZZ phenotype-related alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and pulmonary hypertension Two studies have addressed the variations on FeNO after EIB and they had contradictory results. Scollo et al. found no change in FeNO in either healthy or asthmatic children after a 6-min of vigorous exertion in an exercise laboratory when they studied 24 asthmatic and 18 control children. Terada et al. reported, for 39 subjects, a decrease in FeNO in subjects with EIB and an increase in healthy controls. It is well accepted that the pathophysiology of exercise induced bronchospasm it is not similar to that of asthma. Certainly the inflammation in the airway does not appear to be eosinophilic. Understanding the disease mechanism is a key factor to adequately manage it. This will be a prospective study measuring online exhaled nitric oxide involving children 8 to 21 years old. The study group will include any children coming for a pulmonary exercise test in the exercise laboratory located in the Pediatric Pulmonary Division office. The study will be conducted from the fall of 2009 until the spring of 2011. The change in the FeNO measurement will be correlated with the change in % predicted FEV1. We will consider significant a decrease in FEV1 post exercise of 15% and/or decrease on FEF25-75 of 20% that will persist until 15 minutes after completing exercise. We will also record any symptoms reported by the subject during or after the test. An exercise test is a standard of care when suspecting exercise-induced asthma. The subjects and their parents coming for exercise test will be offered the opportunity to participate in the study. The subject will come for the exercise test and will perform spirometry and FeNO measurement prior to start the test. According to our exercise laboratory protocol 1 minute of warm up at a low speed, followed by 6 minutes of high speed (enough to increase heart rate to 90% predicted or more) and 3 minutes of cool down at a low speed will be performed. Then spirometry will be repeated at 3, 5, 10 and 15 minutes and FeNO measurement will be taken at 5, 10 and 15 minutes. We will analyze the data to find if there is any significant change in FeNO measurements after exercise.

High school elite training programs are today more and more under development in several 'elite sport schools' in Belgium, in order to select and train future elite athletes already at young age. Little is known about the effects of sustained training on the potential development of asthma in adolescents during lung growth. It would be of great importance to be able to select the individuals at risk to develop exercise-induced asthma, already at the start of their enrollment in the 'elite sport school. This would allow physicians to follow their lung function parameters very closely and regularly; and, if necessary, start treatment early after the first signs of exercise-induced asthma.

It is our primary hypothesis that pretreatment with arformoterol will provide superior protection against EIB in children with mild-moderate asthma compared to placebo added to the current asthma regimen. Our secondary hypothesis is that nebulized arformoterol has comparable protection against EIB compared to inhaled formoterol by dry powder inhaler.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the quality of life of subjects suffering from dyspnoea while exercising and quantify the number of diagnoses of Exercise induced Asthma (EIA) and Exercise induced laryngeal obstruction (EILO) in our outpatient clinic using an exercise-challenge in a cold-chamber and an exercise-challenge with continuous laryngoscopy.