[Individual patient sensitivity to glucocorticoids and hormone resistance in bronchial asthma]

The paper reports glucocorticoid actions in bronchial asthma, covers problems of individual sensitivity to glucocorticoids and resistance to hormones, illustrates the dependence of beclometasone dipropionate efficacy on condition of glucocorticoid receptors in alveolar macrophages and clinical appearance of the disease, describes physiological features of patients with hormone-resistant bronchial asthma and its new treatment (extracorporeal photohemotherapy) allowing reduction of prednisolone dose in 14 of 15 patients from 29.6 to 11.4 mg/day, on the average.