Dr. Patricia Segura Medina | Head of the Department of Research in Bronchial Hyperreactivity. INER, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases.
Asthma is a disease that represents a serious public health problem, affecting more than 300 million people worldwide and 5 to 10% of the Mexican population, both children and adults.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease with different phenotypes and clinical expressions depending on age, gender, genetic background, and exposure to environmental aggressors. The pathophysiological mechanisms of asthma are mainly associated with hyperreactivity of the airways due to chronic inflammation and are generated by the predominant production of Th2-type cytokines. These interleukins play a crucial role in the recruitment and activation of effector inflammatory cells in the allergic and non-allergic asthmatic response, primarily linked to exposure to environmental aggressors, allergens, viral infections, metabolic alterations and hormonal changes.
At INER, asthma is the main cause of emergency care, hospitalization and request for consultations in both children and adults. The INER has two specialized asthma clinics for children and adults, it is part of the Women’s Medicine program, one of the populations most affected by this condition.
In the field of research, asthma is one of the broadest lines of development at our Institute and we have the Asthma Experts Group, which is made up of biomedical, clinical and epidemiological researchers, as well as pulmonologists, pediatricians, otorhinolaryngologists and psychologists who we have generated hundreds of scientific articles in impact journals on various aspects of asthma such as the use of new treatments, effects of intramural and extramural pollution on asthma, viral infections and asthma, asthma education, obesity and diabetes in asthma, phenotypes and asthma genotypes, genomic and molecular aspects of asthma and asthma in women.
Asthma is and will continue to be a daily challenge at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases.
World Asthma Day is commemorated on May 3, 2020.
