Monitoring of bronchial asthma.

Assessment of asthma severity is important for disease management. Analysis of symptoms past and present, and previous and actual lung function measurements (including variability) is the usual method of evaluation and classification of asthma disease severity and activity. However, symptoms and lung function alterations are the result of pathophysiological processes including inflammation in the bronchial wall which, in chronic phases, precedes the clinical measurements, and are risk factors for disease progression and worsening. Tools for more precise determination of asthma disease processes in the airway wall would be of importance for prophylactic intervention to avoid chronic damage to the airways and acute worsenings to occur.