[Bronchial asthma in childhood].

Bronchial asthma in childhood is defined as a disease presenting with wheezing, dyspnea and cough on the basis of an inflammatory bronchial hyperreagibility. It is the most common chronic disease in childhood. There are a variety of causes for asthma. Certainly allergy is the most common cause in childhood but also environmental pollution is of importance. Asthmatic attacks, episodes of asthma and asthmatic cough are the most frequent clinical manifestations where as the malignant, hypoxemic asthma crisis is of special importance since its mortality is as high as 0.5-0.8/100,000. Special notice has to be taken on the evaluation of obstructive bronchitis in infancy and childhood which might be very difficult. During the past years, the use of inhalative steroids in the long term treatment has gained increasing importance also in childhood, since it could be demonstrated that side effects of clinical relevance are hardly to be expected.