Asthma is a common disease in both high and lower income countries that starts early and persists often for life. A correct and accurate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up during childhood are essential for a better understanding of adult asthma and avoiding over- or under-treatment. Th2 inflammation in children with asthma symptoms is usually assessed by measuring with serum total IgE, blood e...

In their recent paper Portengen and colleagues have made an important contribution to our understanding of laboratory animal allergy. However, they have omitted to draw attention to an observation of clinical importance to occupational physicians. They have suggested that the lack of decline in lung function in ‘‘experienced’’ workers may be due to the healthy worker effect. Their suggestion is...

Background Respiratory infections in children have assumed epidemic proportions in recent years. Although data on pulmonary function tests of Indian children is available, very few studies in North Indian healthy children are available, especially in healthy children from Haryana. In this study, pulmonary function tests of healthy children, studying in schools of Rohtak (Haryana), on a large sc...

The prevalence of smoking was studied using a questionnaire. Pulmonary function tests and respiratory symptoms were evaluated in 176 smokers. The total studied population with family and co-workers were 13289. The number of smokers among studied population was 11.7%. The rate of smoking among male subjects was 17.2% and in female 2.5%. All values of PFTs in smokers were significantly lower (p<0...

BACKGROUND Global Initiative Strategy for Asthma Management (GINA) is poorly applied in undeveloped and developing countries. The current study examined the effects of applying GINA guidelines on treatment efficacy in asthmatic patients in Iran. METHODS Twenty four asthmatic patients (usual care group) were treated as usual and 26 patients (intervention group) according to the GINA for 2 mont...

The numerical results of 60 sets of pulmonary function tests were submitted to five consultant chest physicians for independent reporting. The chest physicians' reports were compared with the reports generated by the on-line computer reporting system in routine use in the pulmonary function laboratory at Westminster Hospital. There was good agreement between the reports of the chest physicians ...

A cross-sectional study was carried out on one thousand school children studying in three public schools of Delhi and Haryana between 10 to 17 year age group over the period of one year (2001-02). It aimed in studying under diagnosis of asthma in school children and its related factors. Questionnaires including details of medical, social, environmental factors precipitating asthma were filled b...