The effect of short-term exposure to ambient NO2 on lung function and fractional exhaled nitric oxide in 33 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients / 中华预防医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectives@#To investigate the effect of short-term exposure to ambient NO2 has influence on lung function and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients.@*Methods@#A panel of doctor-diagnosed stable COPD patients (n=33) were recruited and repeatedly measured for lung function and FeNO from December 2013 to October 2014. The patients who lived in Beijing for more than one year and aged between 60 and 85 years old were included in the study. We excluded patients with asthma, bronchial tensor, lung cancer and other respiratory disorders other than chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and occupational exposure and chest trauma surgery patients. Because the frequency of each subject visiting to the hospital was different, a total of 170 times of lung function measurements and 215 times of FeNO measurements were conducted. At the same time, the atmospheric NO2 data of Beijing environmental monitoring station near the residence of each patient during the study period were collected from 1 day to 7 days lag before the measurement. Effects of short-term NO2 exposure on lung function and FeNO in COPD patients were estimated by linear mixed-effects models.@*Results@#The subjects' forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), peak expiratory flow (PEF), and exhaled NO of subjects were (3.26±0.83) L, (1.66±0.61) L, (4.13±1.77) L/s, and (48.99±14.30) μg/m3, respectively. The concentration of NO2 was (70.3±34.2) μg/m3 and the interquartile range (IQR) was 39.0 μg/m3. Short-term exposure to NO2 resulted in a significant decrease in FVC among COPD patients' which was most obvious in 2 days lag. Every quartile range increased in NO2 (39 μg/m3, 2 day) would cause a 1.84% (95%CI -3.20%- -0.48%) reduction in FVC. The effects of exposure to higher concentration of NO2 (≥58.0 μg/m3) on FVC estimate was -2.32% (95%CI -4.15%- -0.48%)(P=0.02). No significant relevance of FeNO and NO2 was observed in this study.@*Conclusions@#Short term exposure to ambient NO2 may bring down pulmonary function in COPD patients.