FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 358:1725-1726 April 17, 2008 Number 16 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear Related Article by Ober, C. PubMed Citation

Asthma is a complex and heterogeneous syndrome in which the airway mucosa is abnormal and inflamed. Although its causes are unknown, there are strong clues: it runs in families, and many, but by no means all, patients with asthma have signs and symptoms of IgE responses to common allergens. Asthma has an incomplete association with the phenomenon of nonspecific bronchial hyperresponsiveness to a variety of stimuli. The mechanism of bronchial hyperresponsiveness is itself mysterious. A childhood in an environment rich in microbes protects against the development of asthma in many parts of the world.

In this issue of the Journal. . . [Full Text of this Article]

Source Information

From the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London.

This article (10.1056/NEJMe0802072) was published at www.nejm.org on April 9, 2008.

HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org Comments and questions? Please contact us. The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2009 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.