Background: Bronchial asthma increasing all over the world and the need of a gold-standard biomarkers for prediction of asthma and follow up of treatment is mandatory. However, it is still not existing.
Aim of the work: To measure the serum level of plasma myeloperoxidase [MPO], and its correlation with respiratory function as well as its predictive power of asthma and its severity.
Patients and Methods: The study recruited 130 patients with asthma, with age and sex-matched other 130 healthy controls. Patients were clinically evaluated; respiratory functions were performed and blood samples were drawn to estimate the serum levels of MPO. In addition, sputum was assessed for cellular content. Asthma severity was determined according to available guidelines and both mild and moderate forms were considered as [non-severe form of asthma]. Receiver operation characteristic [ROC] curve was built to assess the predictive power of MPO.
Results: There was female-sex predominance in the study and control groups [65.4% and 70.0%, respectively]. 15.4% had mild, 35.4% had moderate and 49.2% had severe asthma. MPO levels were significantly higher in the study than the control groups [3310.35±373.39 vs. 1900.32±333.57 pg/ml, respectively]. The serum levels of MPO were positively correlated with asthma severity, all cellular content in BAL and body mass index. However, it was inversely correlated with respiratory function. MPO were significantly higher in severe than non-severe forms [3666.59±736.37 vs. 2964.91±554.47 pg/ml, respectively]. MPO had a good predictive power of asthma and its severe form [the AUC was 0.950 and 0.819 respectively].
Conclusion: Serum levels of MPO can used as a good biomarker for diagnosis of asthma and its severity. But results must be treated with caution, and MPO should be used with a panel of biomarkers till more evidence originated to confirm its role from future studies.