M ANY athletes in endurance sports develop exerciseinduced asthma. A mixed neutrophilic/eosinophilic airway inflammation has been reported in swimmers and cross-country skiers, but its association with airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is unknown. This study evaluated patterns of inflammation and epithelial damage associated with "swimmers' asthma" and "skiers' asthma." The study included 64 hig...

BACKGROUND Despite increasing awareness of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program guidelines, the relative contribution of symptom frequency or pulmonary function to the recommended asthma severity levels remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE To determine whether adding lung function measurements to clinical history substantially changes the asthma severity classification, thereb...

sputum were stained with hematoxylin-eosin and with a mono¬ clonal antibody against eosinophil cationic protein (anti-EG2; Pharmacia; Uppsala, Sweden) for immunohistochemical evalua¬ tion. Stained mucosal cells were counted according to the method of Moqbel et al,3 and such cells in the sputum were also counted and expressed as a percentage of 500 cells. As shown in Table 1, IPD caused a signif...

BACKGROUND In the Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) classification, intermittent and persistent rhinitis were proposed to replace seasonal and perennial allergic rhinitis (AR). AIM To better understand the ARIA classification of rhinitis. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out in 591 patients consulting ENT or allergy specialists for AR and 502 control subjects. The...

BACKGROUND Activated fibroblasts, which have previously been obtained from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), are proposed to be important cells in the fibrotic processes of asthma and scleroderma (SSc). We have studied the motility for BALF derived fibroblasts in patients with SSc that may explain the presence of these cells in the airway lumen. Furthermore, we have compared phenotypic alter...

asthma environmental triggers play important roles in severity of disease. passive smoking could exacerbate asthma symptoms and enhance the decrease in lung function. cotinine levels could be a reflection of passive exposure to the cigarette both in adults and pediatrics. the aim of this study was to determine degree of association of asthma severity and cotinine level as a marker of passive sm...

The aim of our study was to determine how often asthma control is achieved in children and adolescents, and how asthma affects parents' and children's daily lives. Interviews, including the childhood asthma control test (C-ACT), were conducted with 1,284 parents of asthmatic children (aged 4-15 yrs), as well as with the children themselves (aged 8-15 yrs; n=943), in Canada, Greece, Hungary, the...

RATIONALE Despite long-term therapy with corticosteroids, patients with severe asthma develop irreversible airway obstruction. OBJECTIVES To evaluate if there are structural and functional differences in the airway epithelium in severe asthma associated with airway remodeling. METHODS In bronchial biopsies from 21 normal subjects, 11 subjects with chronic bronchitis, 9 subjects with mild as...

BACKGROUND Asthma and COPD are characterized by airway dysfunction and inflammation. Neutrophilic airway inflammation is a common feature of COPD and is recognized in asthma, particularly in severe disease. The T helper (Th) 17 cytokines IL-17A and IL-17F have been implicated in the development of neutrophilic airway inflammation, but their expression in asthma and COPD is uncertain. METHODS ...