Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: KEGG:D04296 (Asthma)
25,733 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Asthma is characterized by variable airflow obstruction, airway hyperresponsiveness, and airway inflammation. Mast cells have long been thought to play a central role in asthma through their ability to release proinflammatory mediators, but this role has been questioned by the lack of efficacy of antihistamines and so-called mast cell-stabilizing drugs. Recent comparisons between the immunopathology of asthma and eosinophilic bronchitis have led to the re-emergence of the mast cell as a pivotal cell in asthma. Eosinophilic bronchitis is a condition in which patients present with chronic cough, and shares many of the inflammatory features associated with asthma, but without variable airflow obstruction or airway hyperresponsiveness. The only striking pathologic difference between these conditions is that, in asthma, the airway smooth muscle is infiltrated by mast cells. This suggests that interactions between mast cells and airway smooth muscle cells are critical for the development of the disordered airway physiology in asthma.
Curr Allergy Asthma Rep 2005 Mar
PMID:The re-emergence of the mast cell as a pivotal cell in asthma pathogenesis. 1568 13

Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases among children. The prevalence of asthma among adult and children has systematically increased for the last thirty years. It was hypothesized that atopy was a strong background predisposing to asthma. The aim of the study was to assess the occurrence of atopy in children suffering from asthma. Two groups of children were examined. The study group consisted of 24 children aged 3-7 suffering from asthma and 26 children with bronchitis. Data about each patient's personal and family allergic history were collected. Each child had skin prick tests with common allergens made, total and specific IgE level was measured and blood eosinophil count and spirometry were performed. The result showed that asthma in 88% of the children had an atopic background. Above 70% of the children had allergic diseases other than asthma--the most common was allergic rhinitis (54%) and atopic dermatitis (37.5%). Skin tests revealed that the examined children were mostly sensitized to the allergens of house dust (85.7%), house dust mite (66.6%), and grass pollen (33.3%). Atopic features were also found in children suffering from recurrent bronchitis.
...
PMID:[Occurrence of atopy in asthmatic children]. 1602 89

Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are pathologically distinct in terms of their predominant inflammatory cells and structural alterations (i.e., remodeling). However, there are many cases of functional and pathologic overlap, supporting the author's view that use of the terms asthma or COPD is oversimplistic and fails to identify the range of phenotypes that exist. In general, there is epithelial fragility and thickening of the reticular basement membrane, even in mild asthma; increased airway smooth muscle mass, hypertrophy of mucus-secreting glands, increased vascularity, greater numbers of fibroblasts, and increased deposition of collagen in severe asthma and COPD; and mucous metaplasia, squamous metaplasia, and parenchymal destruction in COPD. Because of increased neutrophilia, patterns of inflammation become similar when exacerbations of asthma and COPD result in hospitalization. Moreover, in mild COPD, exacerbations of bronchitis are associated with mucosal eosinophilia and upregulation of RANTES, two features normally associated with asthma. The overlap may also be seen in intermediate thickening of the reticular basement membrane and eosinophilia in patients with COPD who demonstrate reversibility to oral steroid. Importantly, a recent study of "eosinophilic bronchitis" demonstrates a thickened reticular basement membrane and challenges our current concept of the histopathologic distinctions between asthma and COPD.
...
PMID:Remodeling and inflammation of bronchi in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 1611 32

Guidelines from the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) mention several medications for the treatment of asthma. These medications include oral and inhaled beta-2 agonists, oral and inhaled corticosteroids, xanthines, leukotriene receptor antagonists, and their combinations. In addition to asthma, these drugs are commonly prescribed to treat other respiratory diseases, such as acute bronchitis, chronic cough, lower respiratory infection, or even bronchopneumonia. We analyzed differences in prescribing patterns between pediatric patients with and those without asthma, as coded in the claim records from the National Health Insurance Research Database. Oral beta-2 agonists were the most frequently monotherapy in both groups of patients (52.6-77.6% vs 62.8-84. 8%). Oral beta-2 agonists combined with xanthines or oral corticosteroids combined with an oral beta-2 agonist were the most frequent combination therapies in both groups. Inhaled corticosteroids were used in 3.1-11.0% of patients with asthma; the rate varied by patient age. In conclusion, prescribing patterns were similar in pediatric patients with and those without asthma.
...
PMID:Prescribing patterns of anti-asthma drugs in pediatric patients. 1638 35

Prevalence of asthma and other allergic diseases varies between different regions throughout the world. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of asthma and allergies and some risk factors for asthma in schoolchildren, aged between 6 and 16 years old, in Zonguldak, Turkey. We prepared 1500 questionnaires according to the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood criteria and distributed them in schools, to be completed at home by parents. Appropriately completed 1349 questionnaires, including complementary questions for risk factors, were taken into consideration. Data for air-pollutant levels of sulfurdioxide (SO2) and total suspended particles were obtained also. The prevalence of current wheezing symptoms was 9.6% in children aged between 13 and 16 years old and 11.2% in the total sample. In terms of physician-diagnosed asthma, allergic rhinitis, and eczema, the prevalences were 4.9, 37.7, and 13.2%, respectively. A family history of allergy, diagnosis, or symptoms of allergic rhinitis and bronchitis (age range, 6-9 years) and male gender were found to be significant predictors for asthma symptoms with adjusted odds ratios of 2.089, 0.336, 4.707, 1.652, and 0.599, respectively. Strongly positive correlation between number of symptomatic asthmatic patients and air pollution levels for SO2 (r = 0.864; p = 0.001) and total suspended particles (r = 0.891; p = 0.001) were observed also. The prevalence of asthma is high in Zonguldak, Turkey, and there is a strong correlation between air pollution and asthma symptoms. Allergy in the first-degree relatives, diagnosis of bronchitis and allergic rhinitis, age, and male gender are more important than the other factors in predicting asthma.
Allergy Asthma Proc
PMID:Prevalence and risk factors for childhood asthma in Zonguldak, Turkey. 1645 May 75

Environmental tobacco smoke is an important respiratory tract irritant in young children. To identify factors associated with respiratory disease and determine the main source of smoking exposure in the household, a cross-sectional study of 2,037 children who were immunized in primary health care clinics was conducted (in a sample of 10 out of 38 clinics with 200 children each). Parents answered a questionnaire about children's birth, passive smoking, former and current respiratory morbidity, socio-demographic characteristics, and living conditions. Analysis was based on hierarchical logistic regression. Prevalence of respiratory symptoms was 59.9% for children who live with smokers. Asthma and bronchitis showed the strongest association with smoking. In multivariate logistic regression, the following variables remained associated with asthma/bronchitis: socioeconomic status (OR = 2.93; 95%CI: 1.57-5.45), maternal schooling (OR = 1.46; 95%CI: 1.08-1.98)] and occupation (OR = 1.68; 95%CI: 1.04-2.74), neighborhood (OR = 1.47; 95%CI: 1.06-2.02), child's age (OR = 3.38; 95%CI: 2.31-4.95) and sex (OR = 1.46; 95%CI: 1.09-1.94), breastfeeding (OR = 1.66; 95%CI: 1.15-2.40), and household smoking (OR = 1.58; 95%CI: 1.18-2.11). Children with lower socioeconomic status and exposed to household smoking showed increased risk of respiratory disease.
...
PMID:[Household smoking and respiratory disease in under-five children]. 1658 2

Diseases of the airway are common and make up a significant proportion of the respiratory physician's workload. The major contributors to this situation, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and chronic cough, all result from airway inflammation and often have an overlapping clinical picture, which in some instances makes accurate clinical diagnosis difficult. Asthma is a condition characterized by variable airflow obstruction, airway hyper-responsiveness, and airway inflammation, which is usually eosinophilic. However, the relationship between eosinophilic inflammation and asthma is complex, with only a weak correlation between the severity of airway inflammation and the markers of the severity of asthma, such as Pc20 and FEV1. Eosinophilic bronchitis is characterized by a chronic cough and sputum eosinophilia without airway hyper-responsiveness or variable airflow obstruction. The asthma phenotype is characterized by microlocalization of mast cells in the airway smooth muscle, emphasizing the importance of airway smooth muscle dysfunction in asthma. COPD has generally been considered to be a neutrophilic disease, in contrast to asthma. However, there is increasing evidence that a significant subgroup exists consisting of patients with stable COPD who have chronic airway eosinophilia with a more steroid-responsive disease. This article covers the role of eosinophils in the airway disorders asthma, COPD, and eosinophilic bronchitis.
...
PMID:Eosinophilic airway disorders. 1661 63

Recruitment and activation of both neutrophils and eosinophils seem to be a characteristic of chronic bronchitis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether eosinophil cationic protein and/or myeloperoxidase (ECP/MPO) serum levels differ between patients with chronic obstructive and nonobstructive bronchitis during an exacerbation-free period and if they represent clinical gravity indicators of disease. To identify a correlation between ECP/MPO values in serum and bronco-obstruction, a statistical analysis by logistic regression was used. Study results show that there is a relationship between increased serum levels of ECP and log MPO and an increased risk for forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) pathologic values associated with obstructive chronic bronchitis, with an ECP odds ratio = 1.04 and logMPO = 4.45.
J Asthma 2006 Oct
PMID:Increased serum inflammatory markers as predictors of airway obstruction. 1705 Feb 23

The present study investigated the relationship between socioeconomic status, using measures of occupational class and education level, and the prevalence and incidence of asthma (with and without atopy) and chronic bronchitis using data from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). Asthma and chronic bronchitis were studied prospectively within the ECRHS (n = 9,023). Incidence analyses comprised subjects with no history of asthma or bronchitis at baseline. Asthma symptoms were also assessed as a continuous score. Bronchitis risk was associated with low educational level (prevalence odds ratio (POR) 1.9; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.4-2.8) and occupational class (1.8; 1.2-2.7). Incident bronchitis also increased with low educational level (risk ratio (RR) 2.8; 95%CI 1.5-5.4). Prevalent and incident asthma with no atopy were associated with low educational level. Subjects in the low occupational class (incident risk ratio (IRR) 1.4; 95%CI 1.2-1.7) and education group (IRR 1.3; 95% CI 1.1-1.6) had higher mean asthma scores than those in higher socioeconomic groups. Lower educational level was associated with increased risk of prevalent and incident chronic bronchitis and asthma with no atopy. Lower socioeconomic groups tended to have a higher prevalence and incidence of asthma, particularly higher mean asthma scores. Adjustment for variables associated with asthma and bronchitis explained little of the observed health differences by socioeconomic status.
...
PMID:Socioeconomic status, asthma and chronic bronchitis in a large community-based study. 1721 16

Three strains of nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae namely NTHi-I, NTHi-II and NTHi-III were isolated from the sputum of patients with bronchitis and identified by biochemical, serological and electron microscopy. The polypeptide patterns of isolates were compared and found to have similar sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) polypeptide patterns, although some of the bands were specific in some strains. A similar comparison was made on extracted outer membrane proteins (OMPs) on the above mentioned strains, using Triton X-100 and sodium dodecyle sulphate (SDS). It was found that the polypeptides with molecular weights of 70, 42, 33 and 27 KDa were identified as P1, P2, P4 and P5 respectively. The protein estimation of crude OMPs from the three strains were calculated, and OPM-I prepared from NTHi-I showed the highest amount of protein and was chosen for its immunogenicity in a rat respiratory model. The efficacy of immunization with OMP was determined by enhancement of pulmonary clearance of live bacteria in the rat lung. A significant protective immune response induced by OMP was observed by enhanced respiratory clearance of nontypeable H. influenzae following mucosal immunization.
Iran J Allergy Asthma Immunol 2006 Jun
PMID:Efficacy of immunization with outer membrane proteins for induction of pulmonary clearance of nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae in a rat respiratory model. 1723 77


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next >>