What Does Pathophysiology of Bronchial Asthma Involve?
May 18, 2008
Asthma Is A Chronic Disease:
Asthma is truly a very dangerous disease. There are many other problems that an asthma patient may encounter.
The pathophysiology of bronchial asthma
The pathophysiology of bronchial asthma is a terribly complex process involving three main components, (i) airway inflammation, (ii) bronchial hyper-responsiveness and (iii) intermittent airflow obstruction.
There is a certain mechanism that causes airway inflammation - and by the way this happens one can judge whether asthma is acute, chronic, or sub-acute. Other signs that help in diagnosis here are the edema of the airway, the mucus hyper-secretion and the bronchial reactivity; all these are causes for airflow obstruction. Upon further inspection, it can be found that varying degrees of infiltration of eosinophil, hyper-secretion of mucus and desquamation of the epithelium will be present.
In pathophysiology of bronchial asthma, you will be likely to find as the cause of airway inflammation, activate T lymphocytes, epithelial cells, mast cells, eosinophils, macrophages, etc. The seriousness of the asthma could be determined by the examination of the fibroblasts, epithelial cells and other basic airway cells.
Another sign in pathophysiology of bronchial asthma is the bronchial hyper activity or hyper-responsiveness to external stimuli. This is measured by causing direct stimulation of the smooth muscle of the airway as well as through indirect stimulation with substances from mast cells or other mediator-secreting cells. The results that are read from the hyper-responsiveness would indicate the level (severity) of the asthma.
The Obstruction Of Airway
The airflow obstruction is another way in pathophysiology of bronchial asthma to judge the severity of asthma. Obstruction in the airway could be the result of a series of reasons among which could be the edema of the airway, remodeling of the airway, the formation of a stubborn mucous plug in the airway, acute constriction of the bronchi, etc. The first asthmatic response, as per the pathophysiology of bronchial asthma is the acute bronchi-constriction as a reaction to a mediator release, which happens when one comes into contact with an allergen.
This is followed with a gap of about maximum 24 hours (minimum six hours), with airway edema. The third component, the mucus plug formation takes some weeks to form and dissolve. The last component, the airway remodeling will take place only when the body found has no other way to reverse the obstructions found in the airways.
Summary:
The pathophysiology of bronchial asthma is a very complex and controversial process because there are too many other diseases that could cause the very symptoms and cell changes as asthma. So, it takes a lot of experience and veracity to be able to judge and accurately diagnose these indicators.
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