BACKGROUND Asthma is a common chronic disease of childhood that is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of asthma among secondary school pupils in urban and rural areas of coast districts of Tanzania. The study also aimed to describe pupils' perception towards asthma, and to assess their knowledge on symptoms, triggers, and treatment of asthma...

Background Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is a feature of asthma in which airways are hyperreactive to stimuli causing extensive airway narrowing. Methacholine provocations assess AHR patients mainly by direct stimulation smooth muscle cells. Using vivo mouse models, mast cells have been implicated AHR, but the mechanism behind has remained unknown. Methods Cpa3Cre/+mice, lack cells, were use...

Globally, asthma is a chronic inflammatory respiratory disease affecting over 300 million people. Some asthma patients remain poorly controlled by conventional therapies and experience more life-threatening exacerbations. Vitamin D, as an adjunct therapy, may improve disease control in severe asthma patients since vitamin D enhances glucocorticoid responsiveness and mitigates airway smooth musc...

BACKGROUND An imbalance in the generation of pro-inflammatory leukotrienes, and counter-regulatory lipoxins is present in severe asthma. We measured leukotriene B4 (LTB4), and lipoxin A4 (LXA4) production by alveolar macrophages (AMs) and studied the impact of corticosteroids. METHODS AMs obtained by fiberoptic bronchoscopy from 14 non-asthmatics, 12 non-severe and 11 severe asthmatics were s...

the prevalence of asthma remains difficult to determine with precision with no absolute or gold standard for diagnosis. international study of asthma and allergies in childhood (isaac) developed video questionnaire for epidemiological studies with less reliance on understanding written asthma questionnaire. the aim of this research was to determine the agreement between the isaac written and vi...