[Asthma and bronchial hyperreactivity. Current concepts]

During the last decade much progress has been done in the understanding of the pathogenesis of asthma. The concept of a bronchospastic disease has been replaced by that of a chronic desquamating eosinophilic bronchitis. Bronchial inflammation is primarily responsible for airway hyperresponsiveness, the hallmark of asthma. An abnormality of a subtype of muscarinic receptors probably plays a permissive role.