Methacholine is more sensitive than mannitol for evaluation of bronchial hyper-responsiveness in youth athletes with exercise-induced bronchoconstriction.

摘要

In a recent paper (1), we reported that methacholine testing was more sensitive than mannitol challenge for assessing bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) in children presenting with asthma symptoms. In adult athletes, Anderson et al. (2) found that mannitol and methacholine tests had similar sensitivity and specificity when used to diagnose exercise-induced bron-choconstriction (EIB). However, Sue-Chu et al. (3) reported that in adult winter-sport athletes, methacholine was much more sensitive than adenosine or mannitol in demonstrating BHR. In spite of contradictory results regarding its sensitivity, mannitol challenge is the recommended test for the diagnosis of exercise-induced asthma (4). The aim of this study was to examine the diagnostic properties of methacholine and mannitol challenge for assessment of BHR in a pediatric athlete population presenting with asthma symptoms during exercise.