The allergist's concept of asthma

Asthma is a disease characterized by bronchial hyper-reactivity which leads to airway obstruction of varying degree. Numerous factors are able to induce the obstruction; amongst theses, allergy is prominent and the asthma/allergy relationships listed in Table 1 are generally accepted. Thus, although asthma is not necessarily an allergic disease, all asthmatic patients deserve a full allergic investigation aimed at either finding or excluding a relevant allergen.