Breath sounds, asthma, and the mobile phone

The sounds generated by breathing in asthma are widely accepted as an indic ator of disease activity. We have investigated the use of a mobile phone an d electronic signal transfer by e-mail and voice mail to study tracheal bre ath sounds in individuals with normal lung function and patients with chron ic or exercise-induced asthma. Spectrograms from patients with active asthm a and impaired lung function were significantly different from people witho ut asthma (p<0.0001). Our results suggest that mobile phone recordings clea rly discriminate tracheal breath sounds in asthma and could be a non-invasi ve method of monitoring airway diseases.