Severe and Difficult Asthma: Diagnosis and Management—Challenges for a Low-Resource Environment

Severe and difcult asthma in a low- and middle-income country (LMIC) can relate to (a) lack of availability of basic medications; (b) potentially reversible factors such as poor adherence or comorbidities such as obesity inhibiting a good response to treatment; and (c) (rarely) true severe, therapy-resistant asthma. However, defnitions of severity should encompass not merely doses of prescribed medication, but also underlying risk. The nature of asthmatic airway disease shows geographical variation, and LMIC asthma should not be assumed to be phenotypically the same as that in high-income countries (HICs). The frst assessment step is to ensure another diagnosis is not being missed. Largely, political action is needed if children with asthma are to get access to basic medications. If a child is apparently not responding to low dose, simple medications, the next step is not to increase the dose but perform a detailed assessment of what factors (for example co-morbidities such as obesity, or social factors like poor adherence) are inhibiting a treatment response; in most cases, an underlying reason can be found. An assessment of risk of future severe asthma attacks, side-efects of medication and impaired lung development is also important. True severe, therapy-resistant asthma is rare and there are multiple underlying molecular pathologies. In HICs, steroid-resistant eosinophilia would be treated with omalizumab or mepolizumab, but the cost of these is prohibitive in LMICs, the biomarkers of successful therapy are likely only relevant to HICs. In LMICs, a raised blood eosinophil count may be due to parasites, so treating asthma based on the blood eosinophil count may not be appropriate in these settings.

Mitral Valve Repair in Patient with Severe Mediastinal Shift to Right due to Pulmonary Hypoplasia: A case report / 대한흉부외과학회지

Pulmonary hypoplasia is an entity of pulmonary agenesis. Pulmonary agenesis is a rare congenital anomaly, usually diagnosed soon after birth. It is commonly associated with other anomalies, mainly of the cardiovascular systems. Although it may hasten the death of a child, sometimes it is compatible with normal growth. We report a right lateral thoracotomy approach for mitral valve repair in a young woman with pulmonary hypoplasia, in whom preoperative computed tomography showed severe right side shifting of the mediastinum and total collapse of the right lung.