The Institute of Sport, Exercise & Health’s (ISEH) Consultant Respiratory Physician, Professor James Hull was part of a leading team of clinicians that worked together to develop an analysis on behalf of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), for the purpose of determining how clinicians should test athletic individuals to effectively check if asthma is causing any breathing issues.
Asthma related issues are very common in endurance athletes, affecting around 1 in 4. The problem is, asthma can be difficult to diagnose in clinical practice and appropriate objective tests are needed to ensure the diagnosis is correct. It can be challenging for clinicians to establish how to use the best tests in the right way and this work aimed to address this problem.
Leading experts in providing respiratory care of athletes and researchers came together as a collective at the invitation of the IOC, to undertake this work to help ensure clinicians are provided with the best approach when testing asthma related problems in athletes.
As part of their research, the physicians reviewed and compared the performance of various diagnostic bronchoprovocation tests (BPT) in the assessment of lower airway dysfunction (LAD) in athletes to inform best clinical practice. Their paper describes in detail an analysis of the merits of the different objective tests in two settings – firstly, on an individual level – trying to work out if an athletic individual has asthma and secondly, when screening a whole squad of athletes – outlining what the best approach is when it comes to testing. The tests used at the ISEH, for example, Eucapnic Voluntary Hyperventilation (EVH) performs well as one of the best ways to ensure a robust diagnosis.
Professor (Hon.) James Hull said: “I’m very grateful to the IOC for supporting this work, to ensure respiratory health is optimised in athletes. Optimum respiratory health and performance is a key issue for athletes of all abilities and at the ISEH we continue to focus on providing world-class respiratory care in this setting.”
Read more about this analysis and its findings published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.