This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Asthma

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Asthma is an inflammatory disorder of the conducting airways. The airways become hyper-responsive and constrict easily in response to a wide range of exogenous and endogenous stimuli (1).

Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease affecting 1–18% of the population in different countries.

  • associated chronic inflammation leads to hyper-responsive airways which constrict easily in response to a wide range of exogenous and endogenous stimuli leading to recurrent symptoms and variable airflow limitations (1,2)
  • symptoms and airflow limitation may settle spontaneously or with medication
    • these episodes may be absent for a long period (weeks or months) at a time (2)

The International Consensus Report on the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma (Global Initiative for Asthma - GINA) has put forward the following definition for asthma:

“Asthma is a heterogeneous disease, usually characterized by chronic airway inflammation. It is defined by the history of respiratory symptoms such as wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough that vary over time and in intensity, together with variable expiratory airflow limitation” (2).

Pathologically, there is bronchial inflammation with a prominent eosinophilic infiltrate.

Asthma is common, particularly in developed countries, where up to 10% of children have the disease.

Reference:

  1. Kim H, Mazza J. Asthma. Allergy Asthma Clin Immunol. 2011;7 Suppl 1:S2
  2. Global Initiative For Asthma (GINA) 2023. Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention

Create an account to add page annotations

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.

The content herein is provided for informational purposes and does not replace the need to apply professional clinical judgement when diagnosing or treating any medical condition. A licensed medical practitioner should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions.

Connect

Copyright 2024 Oxbridge Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of OmniaMed Communications Limited. All rights reserved. Any distribution or duplication of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Oxbridge Solutions receives funding from advertising but maintains editorial independence.