Bronchial asthma has been defined as a pulmonary disease characterized by reversible obstruction of the airway inflammation of it and increase its responsiveness to various stimuli.
The airway obstruction in asthma is due to the combination of several factors, including smooth muscle spasm of the route, mucosal edema, increased mucus secretion, cellular infiltration of the walls of airway (especially eosinophils and lymphocytes) and injury and desquamation of respiratory epithelium.
The reaction is exaggerated bronchial respond differently than the bronchi, these same stimuli, in non-asthmatics. We present repeated frames of increased inflammation and bronchial hyper-called crisis or episodes of acute exacerbation. Symptoms may be reversible, in whole or in part, with early and appropriate treatment or, less often, spontaneously.
The concept of Asthma includes a range of issues
* Nonspecific chronic inflammation of the airways including the bronchus, with obstruction of them in a bilateral and diffuse but not symmetrical. This inflammation occurs in individuals ‘predisposed’ to asthma.
* Most patients also exhibit bronchial hyperactivity although it is not unique to the pathology, can be found in other conditions.
* In sputum of asthmatic can find a number of cells: macrophages, dendritic cells, T and B lymphocytes, mast cells, eosinophils and others.
* Chronic inflammation and bronchial secretions, which also produces obstruction may be reversible, in whole or in part, in most patients with early treatment, adequate and prolonged.
* The clinical manifestations during episodes of acute exacerbation, vary with the degree of airway obstruction. They are not pathognomonic of asthma. as there are other conditions that present, constituting the diffuse bronchial obstruction syndrome or syndrome of “air trapping” bilateral lung.
* Clinical manifestations of exacerbations vary from one patient to another and even within a single patient. These exacerbations have other features that will be cited later.
* Possible addition to the above some other points raised by several authors:
* Childhood asthma is often presented as a condition complicated, haphazard, confusing and usually disappears at puberty, which is not true.
* Not controlled by proper treatment is a lasting experience, unpredictable, frightening, that a greater or lesser degree impairs the quality of life for patients and their families, may be irreversible and even fatal.
* Controlled with proper treatment has a favorable prognosis, although their evolution should continue for months or years.
* It currently has a total cure but its clinical manifestations, which are those that bother the patient, can be made to disappear or greatly decrease, achieving normal or nearly normal life for him and his family, with a series of measures, drug and not drug, taking into account existing knowledge about stroke.
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Tags: Asthma, Bronchial asthma, bronchial secretions, Childhood asthma, chronic inflammation, concept of Asthma
