[Is asthma still a life-threatening disease?].

After a substantial augmentation in the mid-1980s, mortality from asthma stabilized in France as in the other industrialized countries, probably because of ever more appropriate health care utilization and treatment. In 2004, there were 1099 death in metropolitan France with a principal cause listed as asthma (last published data), for a crude rate of 1.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Despite the fact that fewer people are dying of asthma, several studies show an excess of all-cause mortality among people with asthma compared with people without asthma. The prevalence of severe asthma does not appear to have diminished, and clinical data show that severe asthma remains potentially fatal, because of resistant phenotypes, among other reasons. Other investigations are necessary to determine the trends in the prevalence of severe asthma and to understand the nonrespiratory mortality of asthma patients. Vigilance and surveillance of severe asthma must be maintained.