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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2010 Jan 13;125(2):285–294. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2009.10.026

Table 1.

Measures of a treatment response

Clinical measures:
 Symptoms

  • Symptom days

  • Asthma control days – days without symptoms or rescue medication use

  • Need for rescue therapy and supplementary long-term controller asthma therapy

 Exacerbations

  • Severe asthma exacerbations – determined by need for intervention with systemic glucocorticoids; determine time to first exacerbation and number of exacerbations

  • Nocturnal exacerbations – associated with sleep disturbance due to asthma

 Asthma control and quality of life questionnaires
Pulmonary function measures:
 Percent change in FEV1 for short-term studies
 Change in percent predicted FEV1 for long-term studies, especially in children
 Post-bronchodilator FEV1
Other objective measures of treatment response:
 Challenge techniques

  • Airway hyperresponsiveness: methacholine, histamine, or cold air

  • Exercise challenge

 Airway inflammation

  • Induced sputum cytology

  • Exhaled nitric oxide

 Distal lung or small airways

  • Closing volume

  • Imaging (air trapping) – high resolution CT scan

  • Hyperpolarized helium

  • FEV25–75