Diagnostic and treatment mistakes in asthmatic status

Abstract

An asthmatic status is one of the most severe complications of bronchial asthma. According to literary data, 10 to 15% of bronchial asthmatic patients’ admissions to hospitals are connected with asthmatic status appearance which causes the mortality of 7 to 16%. Due to the actuality of the problem of timely diagnostics and adequate treatment of asthmatic status seventy two histories of asthmatic patients were analyzed. Those patients were admitted to 4 hospitals of Saratov city in 1995— 1998.
The high frequency of asthmatic statuses hyper-diagnosed before hospitalization and late asthmatic statuses’ diagnosing in the hospitals were found. It was revealed that different hospitals have different approaches to intensive care for asthmatic status patients. When principles of asthmatic status treatment are not performed it leads to long-time intravenous perfusion therapy as well as to the patients’ staying in hospitals for longer period. We have paid attention for different assessment of equal clinical situations that evidences the absence of well-defined AC diagnostic criteria in a physician’s mind. It leads both to hypo- and hyper-diagnosing of this condition and, thus, sometimes to inadequate therapy.