Association between asthma severity and periostin
There are also inconsistent results from the studies which investigated
the association between asthma severity and serum periostin levels. The
results of Licari et al.(17) and Konradsen et al. (18) did not reveal an
association between asthma severity and serum periostin levels. On the
other hand, Song et al. (9) have explored the relationship between
periostin and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) in children with asthma
and found a significant correlation between the degree of AHR and
periostin levels. Similarly, Cho et al. (19) found significantly higher
periostin levels in children with positive exercise and mannitol tests
when compared to children with asthma and negative results. Recently,
the findings of Knihtilä et al.(20) have demonstrated a significant
correlation between serum periostin levels, airway-hyperreactivity and
bronchodilator responsiveness in 49 children with asthmatic symptoms. In
our study we found a significant and independent correlation between
asthma severity and serum periostin levels. A serum periostin value of
52 ng/ml was emerged as the best cut-off level to differentiate children
with severe asthma with high sensitivity and negative predictive values,
whereas the specificity and positive predictive value for this cut-off
were not satisfactory. According to our findings, it can be postulated
that low serum periostin levels may serve clinicians better in excluding
severe asthma in children.