[The cardiovascular system in patients with bronchial asthma of varying severity].

Seventy patients with bronchial asthma (BA), including 17 with mild asthma, 41 with moderate asthma, and 12 with severe BA, were examined by performing external respiration function test, echocardioscopy, ECG, 24-hour Holter monitoring, lipid metabolic studies. Myocardial ischemia was detected in 47% of the patients with BA: in 56 and 83% with moderate and severe BA, respectively. Silent myocardial ischemia was found in 32% of the patients with moderate BA. In severe BA, there was only painful myocardial ischemia. Diastolic dysfunction of the right ventricle (RV) was the earliest hemodynamic change in BA; RV hypertrophy and dilation and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction were observed in severe BA.