BACKGROUND Current cigarette smoking is associated with reduced acute responses to corticosteroids and worse clinical outcomes in stable chronic asthma. The mechanism by which current smoking promotes this altered behavior is currently unclear. Whilst cytokines can induce corticosteroid insensitivity in-vitro, how current and former smoking affects airway cytokine concentrations and their respo...

BACKGROUND Asthma accounts for considerable burden on health care, but in most cases, asthma can be controlled. Quality-of-care indicators would aid in monitoring asthma management. We describe the quality of asthma care using a set of proposed quality indicators. METHODS We performed a retrospective cross-sectional study using health databases in Saskatchewan, a Canadian province with a popu...

several studies reported the appearance of asthma and autoimmune conditions in the same patient, but the clinical significance of this association was not yet assessed. one hundred asthmatic patients were observed for one year evolution with death, severe exacerbations, intake of > 1000 micrograms of beclometasone or equivalent (high ics) and fev1 decline >100 ml, in relation with ana (elisa), ...

VA I L , C O L O . — The new concept in asthma management is that one size does not fit all. Asthma is a heterogeneous entity, and it is increasingly recognized that most, but not all, asthma patients respond adequately to corticosteroid treatment, Dr. Carolyn M. Kercsmar said at a meeting sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In fact, there have even been recent, serious calls for a...

Objectives : To determine the risk factors associated with persistent airflow limitation in patients with asthma. Method s: This study was designed and carried out in the department of respiratory medicine, fourth People's Hospital of Jinan City, Shandong province, China between Jan 2012 and Dec 2012. Three hundred and six asthma patients participating in the study were divided into persistent ...

It is well known that corticosteroids improve asthma in a subgroup of patients and that this responder subgroup is invariably large enough to drive statistically significant differences in asthma outcomes when steroids are compared to placebo in unselected patients. The consistency of clinical trial data showing benefit from corticosteroids, especially in less severe patients, is the reason why...

Whether exhaled NO helps to identify a specific phenotype of asthmatic patients remains debated. Our aims were to evaluate whether exhaled NO (FENO(0.05)) is independently associated (1) with underlying pathophysiological characteristics of asthma such as airway tone (bronchodilator response) and airway inflammation (inhaled corticosteroid [ICS]-dependant inflammation), and (2) with clinical ph...

BACKGROUND The role of adjunct systemic corticosteroid therapy in children with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is not known. The objective was to determine the association between adjunct systemic corticosteroid therapy and treatment failure in children who received antibiotics for treatment of CAP in the outpatient setting. METHODS The study included a retrospective cohort study of child...