NObreath: The essential tool for World Asthma Day

This year, apprehensions have been rising about asthma after recent studies uncovered some horrific truths. For example, Asthma UK found that over 120,000 asthma sufferers in the UK are at risk from wrongly-prescribed medication; while NICE published its findings that 30% of people with asthma are suspected to have been misdiagnosed.

Asthma is an affliction that affects an incredible 334 million people worldwide and 5.4 million people in the UK alone. This year World Asthma Day falls on 3 May. This event reoccurs every May in a bid to raise people’s awareness of this respiratory condition and how it can have a detrimental effect on quality of life and, in severe cases, result in death.

Bedfont Scientific, based in Harrietsham, Kent, is celebrating 40 years in business this year, and manufactures a fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) breath analysis monitor that provides a quick, easy and non-invasive solution to the above-mentioned asthma concerns.

Using FeNO measurements to monitor airway inflammation in asthma patients represent a significant advance in respiratory medicine. The NObreath FeNO test is a user-friendly way to assess patient adherence to treatment, enabling respiratory specialists to prescribe their patients the right levels of medication. Additionally, the NObreath FeNO test can help to differentiate between asthma and other respiratory conditions such as COPD, and asthma and COPD cross over syndrome (ACOS), resulting in fewer patients being misdiagnosed.

Lois Penhaligan, a specialist respiratory physiologist at the Lung Function Laboratory in Llandough, said: “This can be used with patients who have respiratory symptoms, particularly with an unexplained cough and we are looking for the possible cause. The FeNO breath test is used for an assessment of airway inflammation, for the assessment of the effectiveness of a treatment, for example, a bronchodilator and for the management of a disease, for example, asthma."