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SELECTED ARTICLES FROM THE RECENT LITERATURE 2008
4/28/2008
Surface Area of Airway Smooth Muscle and Density of the Vascular Network in Children with Severe Asthma
Summary
These French investigators studied 15 children (5 to 14 years of age) with persistent obstructive airway disease, and 10 without a persistent obstructive pattern. All children evaluated had asthma. Both groups had suffered from asthma the same duration of time. Persistent obstruction was defined as an FEV1 less than 80% of normal following a course of systemic steroids and no improvement after bronchodilator.
The authors found the following:
- The children with persistent obstruction differed from those without persistent obstruction in the increase in surface area of airway smooth muscle and density of the vascular network.
- There was no difference in the two groups in regards to reticular basement membrane thickening.
- There was no difference in eosinophil and neutrophil infiltrates in the bronchial biopsies between the two groups.
The authors concluded that structural changes occur quite early in childhood asthma, and because of the failure to correlate these changes with an inflammatory cell infiltrate, may not be related to the degree of inflammation alone. The most prominent structural changes they measured related to airway smooth muscle area and density of the vascular network. On the other hand, the reticular basement membrane thickening did not distinguish the children with persistent obstruction from those without.
Reference
Tillie-Leblond I. Airway remodeling is correlated with obstruction in children with severe asthma. Allergy 2008; 63:533-541.
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