Small airway bronchodilator response to different doses of salbutamol in 7-year-old children

The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines do not specify a bronchodilator range for bronchodilator response (BDR) testing and simply recommend a salbutamol dose of 200 to 400 mu g. We determined the oscillometric BDR results of children given low-dose (2 puffs, 200 mu g) and standard-dose (4 puffs, 400 mu g) salbutamol to compare the small airway responses of healthy controls (defined using criteria based on the guidelines developed at the American Thoracic Society) and exclusion subjects (defined as any child that did not meet the inclusion criteria for healthy controls). The oscillometric reactance of small airways is significantly associated with the dose of salbutamol used for BDR testing in exclusion children. We suggest use of the standard-dose of salbutamol for oscillometric BDR testing.