Bronchial asthma and hyperventilation

Abstract

Eighty hospitalized bronchial asthma (BA) patients (50 females, 30 males) were divided in two groups according to hyperventilation occurrence. The average age was 45.4±1.3 years, the mean length of the illness was 9.2±1.1 years. The first group, which was the basic, involved 22 patients with the hyperventilation signs (16 females and 6 males) with the average age 44.8±1.6 years and the BA mean length 10.4±2.3 years. The second (control) group included the remained 58 patients (34 females and 24 males with the average age 47.0±2.4 years and the BA mean length 8.7±1.2 years). The mild atopic BA with a quite good course predominated in the basic group, and the severe intrinsic BA combined with chronic bronchitis prevailed in the control group. The basic group patients mostly (15 from 22) formed the hyperventilation signs within subsyndromal somatic panic attacks which started in closed stuffy rooms, or under subjectively unpleasant smells exposure, etc., were shown as dyspnoe with insignificant shortness of breath, a sense of "incomplete inspiration" accompanied by paroxysmal choking, yawning. Typically they took short time, stopped spontaneously and imitated acute bronchial obstruction symptoms, though PEF remained normal or changed less than 15% of predictive value. The searched clinical correlations could be interpreted according to a concept of congenital sensitivity of chemoreceptors (Smoller J. W. et al., 1996). The study results confirm that hyperventilation signs are basically formed in mild BA patients within the structure of the panic attacks. These data could be useful while planning therapy for such patients.