CONTEXT: Asthma is a chronic airway disorder which is associated to the inflammatory cells. Inflammatory and immune cells generate more reactive oxygen species in patients suffering from asthma which leads to tissue injury. AIMS: To investigate the role of oxidant-antioxidant imbalance in disease progression of asthmatic patients. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: In this study, 130 asthmatic patients and 70 healthy controls were documented. METHODS: For this malondialdehyde level, total protein carbonyls, sulfhydryls, activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase, glutathione peroxidase (GPx), total blood glutathione, and total antioxidant capacity (FRAP) were measured. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Analysis of the data was done using unpaired student t test and one-way ANOVA analysis. P < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The present work showed that the systemic levels of MDA (4.19 +/- 0.10 nmol/ml, P < 0.001) and protein carbonyls (1.13 +/- 0.02 nmol/mg, P < 0.001) were found to be remarkably higher in asthmatic patients while protein sulfhydryls (0.55 +/- 0.01 mmol/l, P < 0.05) decreased as compared to controls (2.84 +/- 0.12 nmol/ml, 0.79 +/- 0.02 nmol/mg and 0.60 +/- 0.02 mmol/l, respectively). We also observed decrease in activities of SOD (2047 +/- 50.34 U/g Hb, P < 0.05), catalase (4374 +/- 67.98 U/g Hb, P < 0.01), and GPx (40.97 +/- 1.05 U/g Hb, P < 0.01) in erythrocytes compared to control (2217 +/- 60.11 U/g Hb, 4746 +/- 89.94 U/g Hb, and 48.37 +/- 2.47 U/g Hb, respectively). FRAP level (750.90 +/- 21.22 mu mol/l, P < 0.05) in plasma was decreased, whereas total blood glutathione increased (0.94 +/- 0.02 mmol/l, P < 0.05) as seen in control (840.40 +/- 28.39 mu mol/l and 0.84 +/- 0.04 mmol/l). CONCLUSIONS: This work supports and describes the hypothesis that an imbalance between oxidant-antioxidant is associated to the oxidative stress which plays a significant role in severity of the disease.
