Asthma is a cause of severe morbidity and mortality in the United States. Severe acute asthma accounts for over one million emergency room visits per year (1). The vast majority of patients presenting with acute asthma can be successfully managed with β2-agonist bronchodilators, corticosteroids, and oxygen. Despite maximal medical therapy, it is estimated that 1– 3% of patients with severe asth...

2001;119;1913-1929 Chest Heinrich A. Werner : A Review * Status Asthmaticus in Children http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/119/6/1913.full.html found online on the World Wide Web at: The online version of this article, along with updated information and services can be ) ISSN:0012-3692 http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/site/misc/reprints.xhtml ( written permission of the copyright holder...

In the last decade a considerable number of papers have been written describing fatal illnesses in which the salient clinical features were asthma, eosinophilia, and heart failure. Weir (1939), Harkavy (1941), Chafee, Ross, and Gunn (1942), Miller and Daley (1946), Bergstrand (1946), Smith (1948), and Lennox (1948) have all reported such cases, the clinical course of which differed little from ...

U onditions associ with hypoxia a r g i shift of the wholeood oxyhemoglobin dissoc a curve develops and is postulated to reflect an adaptive mechanism resulting in an increased unloading of oxygen . The intraerythrocytic organophosphate 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3DPG) appears to play a causal role in this relationship .' -' Previous reports in a variety of pulmonary disorders, such as stable st...

Seven patients with status asthmaticus intubated for respiratory failure who had elevated airway pressures and persistent respiratory acidosis were successfully ventilated using a mixture of 60 percent helium and 40 percent oxygen. All patients experienced a rapid reduction in airway pressures, CO2 retention, and resolution of acidosis while breathing a helium-oxygen mixture. There were no unto...

Intensivists use neuromuscular blocking agents for a variety of clinical conditions, including for emergency intubation, acute respiratory distress syndrome, status asthmaticus, elevated intracranial pressure, elevated intra-abdominal pressure, and therapeutic hypothermia after ventricular fibrillation-associated cardiac arrest. The continued creation and use of evidence-based guidelines and pr...