Children with bronchial asthma and diagnosis and treatment

Author: Chen Yuzhi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-15
Features: Asthma is one of the most common chronic respiratory diseases worldwide today, with 300 million asthma patients globally. Over the past two decades, the prevalence of asthma has risen in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and China has seen a similar trend. The 2002 national epidemiological survey of childhood asthma in China showed a prevalence rate of 0.5% to 3.3% within two years, an increase of 64.8% compared to a decade earlier. It is estimated that there are 20 million asthma patients in the country. As a result, asthma has become a serious public health issue, attracting great attention from countries around the world. The essence of asthma is chronic allergic airway inflammation. For a long time, its treatment was limited to temporarily relieving acute symptoms, and at one point, the inappropriate use of bronchodilators significantly increased asthma mortality. The emergence of inhaled corticosteroids as the first-line control medication brought a qualitative breakthrough in this field. Subsequently, the introduction of leukotriene modifiers and inhaled long-acting β2 receptor agonists further improved and strengthened asthma treatment. Asthma management is not solely about medication; it relies heavily on long-term prevention and management, requiring enhanced public awareness and education about the disease. Particularly across the vast land of China, not only patients and their families but also many grassroots healthcare workers have a limited understanding of asthma. In 1994, through the collaborative effort of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization, the "Global Initiative for Asthma" (GINA) was developed. Based on this, our national pediatric asthma collaboration group formulated asthma prevention and treatment guidelines tailored to China's, which have been revised and refined over time. The "Early Diagnosis and Comprehensive Treatment of Childhood Asthma" program developed by the Asthma Center at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics has been recognized as a National Health Ministry's Top 100 Popularization Project. This book aims to help grassroots healthcare workers better understand asthma, improving their knowledge of the pathogenesis, risk factors, diagnostic criteria, severity classification, and other aspects of pediatric asthma. It focuses on medication, offering high practical value.