Bronchial asthma: recent advances

Asthma is one of the oldest diseases about which there are lots of myths in most parts of the world. The exact cause of this global disease still eludes scientists. The recent knowledge about the pathogenesis of the disease, led to rationalise the medications into different groups. Parallel to the increasing incidence of this disease, is the knowledge about the trigger factors and steps to reduce their exposure. Childhood asthma is a lot different from asthma in adults, as many children won't be able to use the inhalers like adults and most children will not be able to do lung function tests until they are about 6 years of age. Unlike for any other diseases, research has helped year after year in developing new strategies for management of asthma. Starting from definition of the disease to inventing newer medications, management of asthma has revolutionised in the last few years and has also accounted for the decreasing mortality in many countries. This article tries to give an overview of bronchial asthma in children including recent advances and possible future developments.