PAT 20A/B Lecture 11: PAT20A_WEEK11_NOTES
22 Mar 2016
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Document Summary
Asthma: chronic inlammatory disorder of the airways. Inlammaion causes varying degrees of obstrucion in the airways o. Leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest ightness, and cough (paricularly at night and in early mornings) Hyper responsiveness or twitchiness of airways is directly related to degree of airway inlammaion, o o. The more hyper responsive airways are to endogenous and exogenous simuli or triggers. Occurs as a result of environmental (endogenous or exogenous) efects on the airways that trigger a series of events in the immune system of a geneically predisposed individual o. Events lead to airway inlammaion and bronchoconstricion (airway narrowing) Key characterisic of asthma: episodic and reversible nature of the nature of the airway obstrucion and its associated symptoms (cough, wheeze, chest, ightness, dyspnea) o. So that episode can resolve spontaneously or with treatment. 15. 6% of children in canada between ages 4 and 11 have at some ime received diagnosis of asthma.
