[Diagnostics and differential diagnostics of bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease].

The subjects of the study were 14 patients with bronchial asthma (BA) and 11 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). A special diagnostic approach, including spirography with a broncholytic test after inhalation loading (IL), was developed and applied to these patients in order to optimize diagnostics and differentiation diagnostics of BA. IL included the use of hypertonic sodium chloride solution inhalation. The control group consisted of 10 patients with non-obstructive chronic bronchitis and 22 healthy individuals. The results show that bronchial reaction to IL is different in patients with BA and COPD, and demonstrate that this diagnostic approach is appropriate when evaluating the peculiarities of bronchial patency. This allows more accurate diagnostics and differential diagnostics of BA and COPD, optimization of patient grouping for scientific studies, including genetic ones, and is interesting from the perspective of therapy prediction in patients with these diseases.