Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về y học được đăng trên tạp chí y học 'Respiratory Research cung cấp cho các bạn kiến thức về ngành y đề tài:Small airway inflammation in asthma. | Available online http content 2 6 333 Review Small airway inflammation in asthma Meri K Tulic Pota Christodoulopoulos and Qutayba Hamid Meakins-Christie Laboratories McGill University Montreal Canada Correspondence Meri K Tulic Meakins-Christie Laboratories McGill University 3626 St. Urbain Street Montreal Quebec Canada H2X 2P2. Tel 1 514 398 3864 ext 0619 fax 1 514 398 7483 e-mail Received 27 June 2001 Accepted 18 July 2001 Published 10 August 2001 Respir Res 2001 2 333-339 2001 BioMed Central Ltd Print ISSN 1465-9921 Online ISSN 1465-993X Abstract Asthma was originally described as an inflammatory disease that predominantly involves the central airways. Pathological and physiological evidence reported during the past few years suggests that the inflammatory process extends beyond the central airways to the peripheral airways and the lung parenchyma. The small airways are capable of producing T-helper-2 cytokines as well as chemokines and they have recently been recognized as a predominant site of airflow obstruction in asthmatic persons. The inflammation at this distal site has been described as more severe than large airway inflammation. These findings are of great clinical significance and highlight the need to consider the peripheral airways as a target in any therapeutic strategy for treatment of asthma. Keywords allergic inflammation asthma peripheral airways small airways Introduction Asthma is a complex chronic inflammatory lung disease that is characterized by epithelial shedding airway smooth muscle hypertrophy and hyperplasia overproduction of mucus and airway inflammation. The pathophysiology of asthma has traditionally been attributed to an inflammatory process that occurs predominantly in the large airways 1 . Early studies conducted over 100 years ago used autopsy specimens to study the macroscopic morphological and histological changes that occur within the large asthmatic airways 1 . Those studies .
