Airway inflammation and asthma.

Asthma is currently identified by the presence of characteristic symptoms of wheezing, chest tightness, dyspnea and cough, and by the presence of reversible airway narrowing and/or airway hyperresponsiveness to a variety of inhaled bronchoconstrictor stimuli. Airway inflammation appears to be central to the pathogenesis of all of these clinical manifestations of asthma. There are increased numbers of activated eosinophils and of mast cells in …