Sputum cellular and cytokine responses to inhaled endothelin-1 in asthma

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Endothelin-1 in the context of cellulite, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Endothelin (ET)-1 is a 21-amino acid peptide which has potent bronchoconstrictor activity.

Who Took Part

The study group was 10 subjects.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

The subjects were allocated by chance, so the Endothelin-1 group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the subjects and researchers unaware of who received Endothelin-1.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Endothelin-1 group a baseline to be compared against.

In the crossover set-up each of the subjects took both Endothelin-1 and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Sputum induction was performed 30 min and 4 h after placebo or ET-1 bronchial challenge.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Albumins, Asthma, Bronchial Provocation Tests, Bronchoconstrictor Agents, Cell Count, Cytokines and Endothelin-1.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Endothelin-1 in 10 subjects in people with cellulite.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1999 (Clinical and experimental allergy : journal of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Endothelin-1 compound page, Cellulite research.