INTRODUCTION Little is known about the distribution of asthma severity in men and women in the general population. The objective of our study was to describe asthma severity and change in severity according to gender in a cohort of adult asthmatics METHODS Subjects with asthma were identified from random samples of the 22 to 44 year-olds from the general population, screened for asthma from 1...

The word asthma is derived from a Greek word meaning difficulty in breathing. The clinical expression of asthma varies from a mild intermittent wheeze or cough to severe chronic obstruction that can restrict normal activity. Acute asthma attacks are triggered by a variety of stimuli, including exposure to allergens or cold air, exercise, and upper respiratory tract infections. Recently, a numbe...

Bronchial Asthma is an airway disease with variable degrees of bronchial mucosal inflammation and intermittent episodes of airway obstruction and bronchial hyperesponsivness. That asthma is a syndrome consisting of different phenotypes has been recognized for a long time by clinicians [1]. New evidence indicates that the composition of airway microbiota differs in states of health and disease. ...

RESULTS. Almost 600 patients were randomized to each treatment arm. Almost 75% of patients had a least 1 episode of asthma, with almost half of patients culminating in an exacerbation. No significant difference was seen between groups in the number of episodes leading to asthma exacerbations. Daily montelukast reduced symptoms over the 12-day treatment period of asthma episodes compared with pl...

The aims of the current study were to assess the clinical features of allergic rhinitis (AR) in children in Shanghai. Serum-specific IgE (sIgE) tests were performed on samples from patients with AR symptoms from January 2011 to December 2014. A disease-related questionnaire was completed after AR diagnosis. The allergen profile and clinical features of AR were analyzed. In total, 2713 AR patien...

Patients with mild intermittent asthma sometimes show signs of inflammation, and guidelines suggesting bronchodilator therapy alone as needed may be questioned. The current study compared as-needed use of a rapid-acting beta2-agonist with as-needed use of a beta2-agonist and corticosteroid combination as the only medication in asthma patients with intermittent symptoms. A total of 92 nonsmoking...

OBJECTIVE Our goal was to teach emergency department (ED) physicians how to use standardized criteria for diagnosing and classifying asthma severity and to describe the patterns of pediatric ED utilization of these criteria for classification of both acute and chronic severity. METHOD A health care provider education module was developed and implemented in 4 participating EDs in southeast Tex...

Increased levels of nitric oxide have been found in expired air of patients with asthma, and these are thought to be related to the airway inflammatory events that characterize this disorder. Since, in adults, bronchial inflammatory changes are present even in mild disease, the present study was designed to evaluate whether a significant proportion of children with mild-intermittent asthma coul...