The asthma death problem revisited.

1. Asthma is a potentially dangerous disease. Asthma deaths occur at varying degrees throughout the world and there is evidence for epidemics occurring in different populations at different times. Such epidemics have been noted as early as last century. Much investigation has been made into the role of inhaled beta-adrenoceptor agonists in these epidemics and indeed there is some evidence fenoterol is implicated. However, evidence for other beta-adrenoceptor agonists is not substantiated. 2. It is also noted that asthma deaths are not all the same, there being at least two types: deaths occurring in chronic severe asthmatics related to disease severity and sudden deaths of an anaphylactic nature that can occur in asthmatics of any disease severity. 3. The important next step in the study of asthma deaths is to concentrate on other important factors rather than the role of therapy which cannot explain all the epidemics and the background instance of asthma death.