Asthma Symptoms and Diagnosis

Bronchoscopy is a lung procedure that allows the physician to look directly into the bronchi and to obtain samples or biopsies of any abnormalities found in the bronchial tree. Bronchoscopy is said to be diagnostic when it is carried out to assist physicians in investigating a lung abnormality. A bronchoscopy is therapeutic when performed to [...]

When a physician needs information on how efficiently a patient’s lungs are functioning, an arterial blood gas (ABG) can provide the answer. The ABG is a blood test. Performance of a routine blood test requires blood taken from a vein, often from the area near the elbow crease. For an ABG test, however, blood is [...]

A methacholine challenge test is a diagnostic test used in the evaluation of suspected asthma when reversibility is not demonstrated on initial spirometry. The methacholine challenge is also used for research purposes to study airway hyperreactivity. It is one type of a class of specialized tests called bronchoprovocation tests. Cold-air exercise tests are another example [...]

Pulmonary function tests (PFTs)—as the name implies— are tests designed to measure and assess lung function . PFTs were originally research tools, avail-able only in specialized academic hospital centers. They are now widely available and are frequently performed because of their usefulness in the diagnosis and treatment of asthma. Keep in mind as you read [...]

The most helpful diagnostic tests for suspected asthma are pulmonary function tests, often referred to as PFTs, and the single most important PFT, both for asthma diagnosis and for follow-up, is spirometry. Other useful medical tests include blood tests and X-ray studies. Additional, more specialized studies may be obtained depending on the clinical picture. An [...]

Gemma’s comment: In my 60s, I had, at different times, two primary care physicians: one whose specialty was gastrointestinal medicine, the other whose specialty was cardiology. In routine interviews, they both asked if I coughed on a daily basis, and of course, I said “yes.” Yet neither one suggested that I should see a pulmonologist, [...]

GERD is an acronym for gastroesophageal reflux disease, a medical condition related to the regurgitation of stomach acid. GERD is very common and is typically manifested as heartburn and indigestion, including a sour taste in the mouth. We all produce acid in our stomach to assist in digestion of the food we eat. The lining [...]

Vocal cord dysfunction (VCD) syndrome, a notorious asthma mimic, was first described in 1983 by doctors from the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado. VCD is the result of abnormal paradoxical vocal cord movement. Humans have two vocal cords located in the larynx, or voice box, which is an organ in the upper neck. The [...]

Yes, several medical conditions can mimic asthma. Surprisingly, not all of them are lung diseases! The lung dis-eases that should be differentiated from asthma include the COPD group (such as emphysema and chronic obstructive bronchitis) and pulmonary embolus, as well as rarer diseases such as eosinophilic pneumonia and pulmonary infiltrates with eosinophilia. A benign or [...]

COPD and asthma are lung ailments. Asthma and COPD can both give rise to similar symptoms, and are sometimes treated with the same medicines. Both conditions can lead to variable breathlessness, wheezy breathing, coughing, and mucus production. Some medicines prescribed for the treatment of asthma, such as inhaled β2 agonists, corticosteroid inhalers, and theophylline, for [...]

Asthma is a specific lung disease that is different from emphysema and chronic obstructive bronchitis. COPD is often used as a kind of shorthand to describe emphysema, chronic obstructive bronchitis, or a combination of both. COPD always refers to diseases that are not asthma. The COPD group of lung diseases is not related to asthma, [...]

COPD is an acronym for the term  chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Chronic obstructive pulmonary dis-ease is a descriptive term rather than a single disease, although it usually is used to refer to emphysema or to chronic obstructive bronchitis. Technically, COPD refers in a general way to several different lung conditions that demonstrate an abnormality on [...]

Yes, depending, of course, on what your exact symptoms are. Medical students and physicians in specialty training are taught the skill of differential diagnosis. When reviewing and analyzing a patient’s report of symptoms, the physician generates a list of different possible conditions that could theoretically be responsible for the symptoms. That list of possible conditions [...]

The presence of a persistent cough is always abnormal. There are many reasons why cough may develop. Each one of us has experienced a cough at some point in our lives, when ill with a respiratory infection or a head cold, for example. Most coughs due to the common cold are short lived and tend [...]

No, not necessarily. The to-and-fro movement of air through the lungs and tracheobronchial tree should always be silent. A wheeze is an abnormal sound produced by turbulent flow of air through the lungs. There are many different causes of wheezing The occurrence of a wheeze by itself without any other symptoms is unusual. It is [...]

Gemma’s comment: In my teens, I attended a boarding school in northern New York State. I found that in winter I could always develop a noisy wheeze if I opened a window and took big gulps of cold air. The choking cough and noisy breathing that followed was enough to get me excused from what [...]

A wheeze is the sound generated when air travels though a breathing passage (airway) that has become narrowed. The narrowing can be due to mucus secretions trapped within the airway or to the airway muscles’ constriction or tightening around the airway. The airway narrowing due to asthma is reversible. Medications prescribed for asthma help the [...]

Asthma is characterized by periods of exacerbations and remission of symptoms, as mentioned briefly in Contemporary View Of Asthma. During a remission of asthma, symptoms are well controlled and measurements of lung function normalize. An exacerbation of asthma, on the other hand, refers to an increase in lung inflammation and rep-resents a period of increased [...]

Medical textbooks correctly inform us that “classic” symptoms of asthma are three in number: wheezing, cough, and abnormal sensations of breathing, or dyspnea. If you are studying for a knowledge test, mark those three symptoms on your answer sheet. You will get full credit for the right answers and will surely score an A for [...]