Chronic Inflammation

In asthma, the allergic inflammatory process never really stops. An important medical discovery made several years ago was that some inflammation is present in the bronchial tubes of people with asthma even when they feel well and when their breathing is normal. Medical researchers performed experiments to sample (biopsy) small pieces of the walls of the bronchial tubes. The samples were taken at times when the research participants were feeling well, free of asthma symptoms. Yet in the biopsied tissues, scientists found evidence of persistent inflammation of the bronchial tubes.

This suggests that airway inflammation in asthma is always present, at least to some degree. The inflammation may be so mild that it does not cause narrowing of the bronchial tubes. But the persistent presence of this inflammation is probably a major reason that the bronchial tubes are twitchy, or capable of narrowing abnormally. By understanding more about the multiple steps involved in this type of inflammation, physicians have developed treatments aimed at keeping it under control