Serum Level of Soluble Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule -1(sVCAM-1) in Bronchial asthma in Children

Abstract

Bronchial asthma is considered the most prevalent chronic condition in children and is thought to be a major cause of school absenteeism. The preferential eosinophil accumulation is a characteristic of airway inflammation in asthma. This selective eosinophilic accumulation in allergic airways is regulated by interaction between a group of adhesion molecules expressed on both eosinophils and endothelial cells specially VLA-4 and sVCAM-1.

In order to throw more light on the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma, it is important to study the serum sVCAM-1 levels in asthmatic children during acute exacerbation and in stable condition and to correlate these levels with the severity of the exacerbation. Thus, this study was carried out to estimate the serum sVCAM-1 levels in asthmatic children in acute exacerbation and in stable condition and to find the relation if any between the level ofsVCAM-1 and the severity of attack.

For the purpose of the study, we recruited thirty children (17 boys and 13 girls with age ranging from 4-12 years) during acute exacerbation of bronchial asthma from the Outpatient clinic of Alexandria University Children's Hospital at El-Shatby as well as fifteen healthy children of matching age and sex. Both patients and controls were subjected to detailed history taking, complete physical examination, oxygen saturation measurement using pulse oximeter, PEFR determination, complete blood count with absolute eosinophilic count, and measurement of serum level of sVCAM-1 before any intervention.