A clinical and pathological study of fatal cases of status asthmaticus.

Altho,ugh over 200 fatal cases of asthma have been reported with detailed microscopic findings (Unger, 1945) the train of events leading to death in status asthmaticus is still not fully understood. The obscurity is largely due to the inherent difficulty in assessing the relative importance of the pathological changes found, but has been increased by the fact that not all the patients whose cases are on record had died in attacks of uncomplicated asthma. It was therefore decided to study a group of patients, who had died in status asthmaticus but showed no clinical or pathological evidence of respiratory infection or pulmonary heart disease, in an attempt to elucidate the pathogenesis of the condition.