FeNO as a Marker of Airways Inflammation: The Possible Implications in Childhood Asthma Management

The aim of this study was to verify FeNO usefulness, as a marker of bronchial inflammation, in the assessment of therapeutic management of childhood asthma. We performed a prospective 1-year randomized clinical trial evaluating two groups of 32 children with allergic asthma: "GINA group", in which therapy was assessed only by GINA guidelines and "FeNO group", who followed a therapeutic program assessed also on FeNO measurements. Asthma Severity score (ASs), Asthma Exacerbation Frequency (AEf), and Asthma Therapy score (ATs) were evaluated at the start of the study (T1), 6 months (T2), and 1 year after (T3). ASs and AEf significantly decreased only in the FeNO group at times T2 and T3 (p[T1-T2] = 0.0001, and p[T1-T3] = 0.01; p[T1-T2] = 0.0001; and p[T1-T3] < 0.0001, resp.). After six months of follow-up, we found a significant increase of patients under inhaled corticosteroid and/or antileukotrienes in the GINA group compared to the FeNO group (P = .02). Our data show that FeNO measurements, might be a very useful additional parameter for management of asthma, which is able to avoid unnecessary inhaled corticosteroid and antileukotrienes therapies, however, mantaining a treatment sufficient to obtain a meaningful improvement of asthma.