Potentially fatal asthma.

Potentially fatal asthma (PFA) is a designation used to identify patients with asthma who are at increased risk of a subsequent fatality.’ This diagnosis is dependent on patients presenting to the health care system because the diagnosis is based on major asthma events as listed in Table 1. Some fatalities in Chicago have occurred in patients who have not received medical care and therefore cannot be labeled as PFA. In the United States, 52.3% of asthma fatalities occur outside of the hospital, but in comparison, in Australia, during 1986 to 1987, 150 of 163 deaths occurred outside of the hospitaL’