
Negative family characteristics such as family conflict and family dysfunction discriminated children who died of asthma from children with equally severe asthma who did not die. Parenting difficulties have been associated with a higher risk for the development of asthma early in life. In addition, children with the highest risk of developing early-onset asthma were those in families with both parenting problems and high stress. Evidence for a asthma and stress link has been demonstrated through temporal studies, as experiencing an acute negative life event increased children’s risk for an asthma attack 4 to 6 weeks after the occurrence of the event. (more…)
Learning to relax is important not only to release tension or stress but can ease your sinus and help you to copy with it. True rel ...
The two strongest risk factors for asthma in childhood are a family history and immediate hypersensitivity to common allergens. ...
Asthma is a frightening condition. I have lived with asthma symptoms for 17 years and the thought of an allergy induced asthma atta ...
Acupuncture for acne, psoriasis, allergies and related conditions is the current interest of several study groups, to investigate a ...
The genetic basis of asthma heritability has been extensively studied and the studies are yielding some understanding. There is ...

Some of the immediate sequelae of injury are uncomfortably familiar: Soon after an injury occurs, the affected site and its surrounding tissues become reddened, warm, swollen, and painful. These four signs which are probably the most useful and ubiquitous diagnostic clues in all of clinical medicine are hallmarks of acute inflammation, the body’s initial physiologic reaction to tissue distress. In its simplest form, inflammation is a response carried out by blood vessels and by the endothelial cells that line them. (more…)
The response to injury usually begins with dilatation of small blood vessels in and around the injured site (figure bellow). Th ...
Once it is tethered onto the venule wall, the neutrophil or other leukocyte comes into contact with a wide variety of inflammatory ...
Acute inflammatory response constitute the first line of defense against infection pathogenesis and how immune system works as ...
Nearly all tissues, organs, and serosal cavities harbor a population of resident phagocytes. Most contain only a diffuse scattering ...
Innate immune responses are seen in a very broad range of tissues. Indeed, the Toll-like receptors (TLRs, one of the most important ...

Roflumilast is an oral, once-daily inhibitor of phosphodiesterase type 4 (PDE4) that prevents the breakdown of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels, leading to inhibition of pro-inflammatory signalling. This study investigated the effects of repeated doses of 250 or 500 µg of roflumilast on airway asthma responses to allergen. (more…)
Roflumilast is an oral, once-daily PDE4 inhibitor with antiinflammatory activity in development for the treatment of asthma. Ro ...
Marimastat is a synthetic broad-spectrum matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitor. This study assessed the anti-inflammatory effect ...
Treating allergic rhinitis may have a downstream effect on concomitant asthma and this may be due to attenuation of the underlying ...
Tumour Necrosis Factor is a pro-inflammatory cytokine implicated in the pathogenesis of asthmatic airway inflammation, hyper-react ...
Despite optimum drug delivery and good compliance with inhaled corticosteroids, many patients experience symptoms and exacerbat ...

Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a) is a major therapeutic target in a range of chronic inflammatory disorders involving neutrophils and its excess production is characterized by a Th1-type immune response. Asthma is regarded as a Th2-type disorder when associated with atopy, (more…)
Tumour Necrosis Factor is a pro-inflammatory cytokine implicated in the pathogenesis of asthmatic airway inflammation, hyper-react ...
Roflumilast is an oral, once-daily inhibitor of phosphodiesterase type 4 (PDE4) that prevents the breakdown of cyclic adenosine ...
IgE plays an important role in allergic asthma. Reducing IgE in the airway mucosa should reduce airway inflammation. Omalizumab has ...
Lidocaine is a local anaesthetic that possesses the ability to potently shorten eosinophil survival. This study assessed the sa ...
An emerging concept is that pro-inflammatory signals lead to loss of Regulatory T Cells (Treg) function. Pasare and Medzhitov ( ...
Allergen exposure plays a role in the development of asthma bronchial hyper-responsiveness and in the acute inflammatory response seen in asthmatic patients. Reduction of house dust mite allergens might lead to better lung function and reduction of asthma symptoms. (more…)
Exposure to allergens plays a role in the development of BHR and in the chronic inflammatory response seen in asthmatic patients. R ...
To prevent the development of allergy, allergen avoidance has to be instituted before sensitization has occurred. The specific ...
Two factors thought to influence the risk factor asthma are the promoting effect of sensitization to house dust mites and the preve ...
Asthma and allergic diseases are common in both children and adults. Their development depends on an interaction between asthma ...
Avoidance of any one of the individual risk factors associated with childhood asthma has not been successful in preventing its deve ...
Acute phase proteins are plasma proteins, the synthesis and the circulating concentrations of which are adaptively regulated in response to most forms of acute inflammation, infection and tissue injury. The name arises from the fact that the first such protein, C-reactive protein (CRP), was originally discovered in serum sickness of patients in the acute phase of pneumococcal pneumonia. (more…)
There is considerable diversity among acute phase proteins with respect to the concentrations attained, their structures, and their ...
Acute phase proteins and the acute phase response in general arc stably conserved in evolution and are universal within each specie ...
Most acute phase proteins are synthesized in the liver, although the genes for some are also expressed in cells and tissues els ...
With the exception of complement protein C3, most soluble mediators of innate immunity are found in relatively small amounts in ...
Some of the immediate sequelae of injury are uncomfortably familiar: Soon after an injury occurs, the affected site and its sur ...

Airway hyper-responsiveness in asthma may involve smooth muscle growth, a manifestation of airway remodelling. The involvement of inflammatory cells in the induction of airway smooth muscle growth was studied in vivo and ex vivo in a brown Norway rat model of asthma. Transfer of CD4 + T lymphocytes from ovalbuminsensitized animals induced an increase in airway smooth muscle mass in naive animals upon repeated ovalbumin challenge. Ex vivo, coculture of antigen-stimulated CD4 + T cells and airway smooth muscle cells led to myocyte proliferation and prolonged T-cell survival. (more…)
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), originally described as a vascular permeability factor generating tissue oedema, has be ...
Toll-like receptors (TLRs) act as receptors for numerous stimuli of immune cells, including bacterial cell wall constituents (l ...
A role for Leukotriene B4 in the induction of airway hyper-responsiveness was explored through the use of transgenic mice defic ...
IgE plays an important role in allergic asthma. Reducing IgE in the airway mucosa should reduce airway inflammation. Omalizumab has ...
Eosinophil infiltration of the mucosa is a feature of asthmatic airways. Their adhesion to bronchial epithelial cells has been ...

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the skin which usually starts in infancy. It is sometimes called ‘atopic eczema’ or even simply ‘eczema’. Recently, the term ‘atopic eczema dermatitis syndrome’ or eczema symptoms or infantile eczema has also been proposed to indicate the varied nature of this disease. The diagnosis is based on clinical features of a chronic itchy dermatitis with typical morphology and distribution and a relapsing and remitting course. (more…)
Atopic Dermatitis is a chronic relapsing skin disease. Several investigations concerning the long-term prognosis of Atopic Derm ...
Atopic Dermatitis is considered to be one of the first manifestations in the atopic march. The aim of this study was to investi ...
The prevalence of atopic dermatitis is increasing in Western societies. The hygiene hypothesis proposes that this is due to red ...
The pharmacokinetics of pimecrolimus cream 1% and tacrolimus ointment 0.1% in adults with extensive, moderate to severe atopic ...
Topical corticosteroids are the usual therapy for patients with atopic dermatitis, but prolonged use can result in skin atrophy ...

The symptoms of asthma occur together with variations in the diameter of medium- size airways such that it is increasingly difficult to exhale. Narrowing of the airways can occur because of smooth muscle contraction, edema or swelling of the wall, or increased mucus in the airways. However, it is increasingly clear that the pathologic event underlying most cases of asthma is acute inflammation of the airway walls. (more…)
There are other signs and symptoms of asthma. People with asthma can be feeling irritable because of asthma discomfort. Some si ...
IgE plays an important role in allergic asthma. Reducing IgE in the airway mucosa should reduce airway inflammation. Omalizumab has ...
Exercise-induced asthma is a feeling of shortness of breath, with the presence of cough, wheezing, and chest tightness after physic ...
The two strongest risk factors for asthma in childhood are a family history and immediate hypersensitivity to common allergens. ...
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), originally described as a vascular permeability factor generating tissue oedema, has be ...

Antihistamines have been shown to be effective in seasonal allergic rhinitis and chronic idiopathic urticaria. They improve quality of life scores, acute inflammatory response markers in atopic dermatitis asthma and symptom scores. Newer histamine H1-receptor antagonists may also have an antiplatelet-activating factor effect and are equally effective in seasonal allergic rhinitis. The antileukotrienes were developed in the 1980s. The first compounds of this novel class of anti-asthma drugs were registered in the second half of the 1990s. The mechanism of action of the cysteinyl leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) is based on counteracting the effects of cysteinyl leukotrienes at their receptor site (CysLT1 receptor) within the airways. (more…)
A variety of proinflammatory cells, mediators, and cytokines orchestrate the development of airway hyperresponsiveness, which r ...
Montelukast has proven efficacy in the treatment of chronic asthma and seasonal allergic rhinitis, but it has not been evaluate ...
Leukotrienes can be found in the airway and urine following both spontaneous exacerbations of asthma and acute exposure to bron ...
Two main strategies have been developed to block the effects of cysteinyl leukotrienes in the airway. One method is to use drug ...
A role for Leukotriene B4 in the induction of airway hyper-responsiveness was explored through the use of transgenic mice defic ...