Asthma bronchiale

1. Big picture

Asthma bronchiale is a chronic inflammatory airway disease with variable, usually reversible expiratory airflow limitation. The examiner wants you to recognize the classic pattern:

Episodic wheeze + dyspnea + chest tightness/cough, worse at night/early morning or after triggers, with reversible airflow obstruction.

Clinically, asthma has two faces:

1. Chronic disease control — prevent symptoms, exacerbations, airway remodeling, and death.
2. Acute asthma attack — an emergency where the patient can deteriorate from wheezing to a silent chest, exhaustion, hypercapnia, and respiratory arrest.

GINA defines asthma by variable respiratory symptoms plus evidence of variable expiratory airflow limitation; symptoms include wheeze, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and cough.

---