BACKGROUND Exacerbation of asthma during travel to remote regions may lead to devastating consequences. The course of asthma in travelers and the risk factors for disease exacerbation during travel have not been studied. METHODS We screened 5835 consecutive travelers and identified 203 patients with asthma. Before travel, all enrollees were assessed for presumed risk factors for asthma exacer...

Respiratory infections have been implicated in the origin and exacerbation of asthma in a variety of ways; however, systemisation of this knowledge in a way helpful for disease management remains suboptimal. Several conceptual issues need to be taken into account: the fact that the effects of an infection may vary according to genetic background, the current immune status of the host, and paral...

OBJECTIVES T-helper (Th)2 cytokines are thought to mediate most of the allergic inflammatory responses associated with atopic asthma. But the Th1-related chemokine, interferon (IFN)-γ-induced protein 10 (IP-10)/chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand (CXCL)10, was the predominant chemokine measured during human allergic pulmonary late-phase reaction. Viral infection and allergens can exacerbate asthma b...

Recent studies suggested the T-helper cells type-2 lymphocytes-specific thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC) and monocyte-derived chemokine (MDC) are useful inflammatory markers for chronic asthma. However, their roles in assessing the severity of acute asthma are unknown. This study aims to evaluate the serial changes of plasma TARC and MDC concentrations in children with asthmatic...

Severe asthma exacerbations are periods of intense airway inflammation that have been hypothesised to contribute to structural changes in the airways. If so, accelerated lung function decline over time should be more prevalent in adult patients with asthma who have frequent exacerbations than those without, but to date this has not been demonstrated. A cohort study was performed in order to inv...

BACKGROUND : Interleukin 18 (IL-18) is reported to have regulatory functions on Th1 and Th2 cytokine production and proinflammatory effects through promoting recruitment of memory Th1 cells to inflammatory sites. We sought to investigate the expression of the serum IL-18 in childhood bronchial asthma in relation to disease activity and severity. METHODS : Serum IL-18 was measured by enzymatic...

Zinc deficiency has demonstrated an association with the risk of asthma. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of zinc supplementation in reducing the severity of childhood asthma exacerbation. A number of 42 children with asthma exacerbation admitted to the hospital were randomized to receive either zinc bis-glycinate (30 mg elemental zinc/day) or a placebo in adjuvant to the standard trea...

Systemic and airway eosinophilia are recognised features of asthma. There are, however, patients who exhibit discordance between local and systemic eosinophilia. In this study, we sought to determine the prevalence and characteristics of patients with concordant and discordant systemic and bronchial eosinophilia. We conducted a retrospective study on 508 asthmatics with successful sputum induct...

Until recently, no point-of-care tool was available for assessing the underlying airway inflammation associated with asthma. Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) emerged in the last decade as an important biomarker for asthma assessment and management. Evidence also indicates that FeNO is most accurately classified as a marker of T-helper cell type 2 (Th2)-mediated airway inflammation with a ...

To clarify clinical significance of high mobility group box 1 level in inflammation asthma-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease overlap syndrome. A total 124 asthma patients acute attack (asthma group), chronic exacerbation (chronic group) and syndrome (asthma-chronic hospitalized the department geriatric respiratory medicine second our hospital from January 2020 to June 2022 were enrolled. Th...