[Inhalation acetylcholine test in chronic non-specific disease of the respiratory tract (author's transl)].
Inhalation tests with 0.5% and 1% acetylcholine chloride wereperformed 374 times in 220 patients with chronic and non-specific respiratory disease and46 control subjects. This simple method, developed by the author, is based on spirographic registration of lungs functions before and after acetylcholine-aerosol inhalation. One hundred and thirty patients with chronic asthma-type bronchitis or intrinsic asthmaand 51 with allergic bronchial asthma had much higher incidence of positive tests [118, i.e. 43%; P less than 0.001] than the group with chronic bronchitis ]5 of 39]or the control group [3 of 46]. There was no significant difference between the lasttwo groups [ 0.5 greater than P less than 0.1]. The inhalation acetylcholine testfacilitates the differential diagnosis of asthmatic syndromes from chronic bronchitis. Ifthe test is positive this suggests an increased bronchomotor reactivity or a non-specificbronchial irritation