Effects of Montelukast in Asthmatic Children With and Without Food Allergy

The aim of this analysis is to determine whether the children with food allergy may have more eosinophilic inflammation in the airways (as measured by FENO) or they may have Cysteinyl leukotrienes based inflammation in the airways that will be shown by high levels of Cys LT and low levels of lipoxin in the exhaled breath condensate. Our suggestion is that a special pattern of inflammation may be seen in asthmatics with food allergy because of their strong atopic march history and then we aimed to test if montelukast is more effective in children when the ratio of Cysteinyl LT inflammation is high relative to FENO (eosinophilic inflammation). This study will be the first to evaluate the effect of montelukast regarding the synthesis of Cys leukotrienes, lipoxin and FENO that will be measured from exhaled breath condensate, which is the mirror of the local inflammation in the airways in asthmatic children with atopy (food allergy). As we mentioned above another factor that we are planning to analyze is the ratio of Cys leukotriene to lipoxin, which is the natural antagonist of LT. This study will determine the ratio of Cyst LT to lipoxin and Cyst LT to FENO in the exhaled breath condensate and then there will be an analysis to see the correlation of these inflammatory markers with montelukast related changes on FEV1%, FEV1%/FVC.