[Reactive airways dysfunction syndrome]

Reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, better known as RADS, was described as a clinical entity consisting in the appearance of bronchial asthma due to massive toxic inhalation. The term was coined and recognised for the first time in 1985. Since then different publications have verified new cases as well as different causal agents. It usually arises from an accident at the work place and in closed or poorly ventilated spaces, where high concentrations of irritant products are inhaled in the form of gas, smoke or vapour. In the following minutes or hours symptoms of bronchial obstruction appear in an acute form, with bronchial hyperresponsiveness persisting for months or years. The affected patients do not show a recurrence of symptoms following exposure to non-toxic doses of the same agent that started the symptoms. This is why diagnosis is based on clinical manifestations as it is not reproducible through a provocation test.