Causes & diagnosis of bronchial asthma

Bronchial asthma is a long-term medical condition that causes airways inflammatory reactions, leading to accumulation of the mucous secretions inside the airways which results in contraction of the lining annular muscles. For these reasons, the asthmatic patient usually suffers from tight and wheezy chest.

Recent medical studies showed that the incidence of bronchial asthma is usually associated with positive family history of any allergic condition. It also showed that most asthmatic patients tend to have other inflammatory or allergic condition such as sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, spring conjunctivitis… etc.

Development of asthma episodes should be triggered with allergen, this could be; dust, pollen, pets, physical or mental stress or certain medications (such as; aspirin, some antibiotics, sulpha-containing drugs… etc.).

Diagnosis of bronchial asthma according to WHO criteria is done as follow:

• Full examination and assessment of the patient's medical history.
• Full examination and assessment of the family history related to allergic or inflammatory medical conditions.
• Clinical examination of the airways and assessment of the case according to the clinical findings.
• Doing lab tests and investigations for more assessment and for preparing the management strategy, these investigations include; pulmonary function test, complete blood count (CBC), chest x-ray as well as pharyngeal and laryngeal swabs for immune cells identification.

Management of bronchial asthma includes bronchodilators to relive symptoms; also corticosteroids can be used in resistant episodes. Avoiding exposure to allergen is an important to reduce as much as possible active asthma episodes.