Parental tobacco smoking is associated with augmented IL-13 secretion in children with allergic asthma

Feleszko, Wojciech; Zawadzka-Krajewska, Anna; Matysiak, Katarzyna; Lewandowska, Dorota; Peradzyńska, Joanna; Dinh, Q. Thai; Hamelmann, Eckard; Groneberg, David A.; Kulus, Marek

doi:10.1016/j.jaci.2005.09.008

« Previous Next »The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Volume 117, Issue 1 , Pages 97-102, January 2006

Parental tobacco smoking is associated with augmented IL-13 secretion in children with allergic asthma

Wojciech Feleszko, MD, PhD
- From the Departments of Pediatric Pneumonology and Allergy
- Dr Feleszko is on a leave of absence at the Department of Pediatric Pneumology and Immunology, Charité Universitäts Medizin, Berlin, Germany.
- Reprint requests: Wojciech Feleszko MD, PhD, Department of Pediatric Pneumology and Allergy, The Medical University Children's Hospital, ul Działdowska 1/3, PL-01-184 Warsaw, Poland.
Anna Zawadzka-Krajewska, MD, PhD
- From the Departments of Pediatric Pneumonology and Allergy
Katarzyna Matysiak, MD
- Unit of Anaesthesiology, The Medical University Children's Hospital, The Medical University of Warsaw
Dorota Lewandowska, MD
- Unit of Anaesthesiology, The Medical University Children's Hospital, The Medical University of Warsaw
Joanna Peradzyńska, MD
- From the Departments of Pediatric Pneumonology and Allergy
Q. Thai Dinh, MD, PhD
- Pneumology and Immunology, Charité School of Medicine, Free University and Humboldt-University, Berlin
Eckard Hamelmann, MD, PhD
- Department of Pediatric Pneumology and Immunology, Charité Universitäts Medizin, Berlin
David A. Groneberg, MD, PhD
- Pneumology and Immunology, Charité School of Medicine, Free University and Humboldt-University, Berlin
Marek Kulus, MD, PhD
- From the Departments of Pediatric Pneumonology and Allergy

Received 18 February 2005; received in revised form 11 August 2005; accepted 7 September 2005. published online 08 November 2005.

Warsaw, Poland, and Berlin, Germany

Background

Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been shown to increase symptoms of allergic bronchial asthma, but direct effects on the expression of inflammatory markers have not been demonstrated thus far.

Objective

The aim of this study was to assess the correlation of ETS exposure with the expression of proinflammatory mediators in airway secretions, including IFN-γ and IL-12, as well as IL-5 and IL-13, in allergic asthmatic schoolchildren and healthy control subjects.

Methods

By using the nasopharyngeal aspiration technique, airway secretions were collected from 24 atopic children with asthma (age, 6-16 years) and 26 healthy control subjects, and the concentration of cytokines was measured with immunoenzymatic methods.

Results

IL-13 levels were highly increased in patients with asthma (P < .005), and parental tobacco smoke resulted in a significant increase in airway IL-13 secretion in these children compared with that seen in nonexposed children and healthy control subjects (median, 860 pg/mL vs 242 pg/mL and 125 pg/mL, respectively). Furthermore, a positive correlation between IL-13 levels and serum IgE concentrations (r_s = 0.55) was found in children with allergic asthma.

Conclusions

These results indicate that ETS augments the expression and secretion of IL-13 in allergic asthma and that nasopharyngeal aspiration is a suitable method to assess cytokine measurements in airways in children. Measurements of IL-13 in secretions might be taken into account as a noninvasive marker of airway inflammation and to assess the detrimental effects of ETS.

Key words: Children, IL-13, smoking, pediatric asthma, IgE, environmental tobacco smoke, nasopharyngeal aspirates, IL-5, IL-12, IFN-γ