Findings in a recent Swedish study have proposed that biomarkers including desmosines and C-reactive protein (CRP) could be effectively used in the diagnosis of the severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Researchers of the study asserted that the markers were able to administer several measures associated with lung functions of patients diagnosed with COPD. However, the same doesn’t stay true in case of patients who are not suffering from COPD.

Gunnar Engström from Lund University, Malmö, Sweden and colleagues expect that their study results will help establish new ways of examining the lung function deterioration, apart from the older ones, which make use of repeated lung physiology tests.

They said, “There is a great need for biomarkers that could be used as sensitive measures of the disease activity and assist as predictors of lung function decline”.

The study involved 357 individuals. The lung function of the participants was measured using different ways: forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), residual volume/total lung capacity (RV/TLC), and carbon monoxide diffusing capacity (DLCO).

Even blood samples were taken, so that the lung function can be tested using 10 biomarkers. It was concluded that CRP and desmosines biomarkers were inversely related to the measures of lung function.