THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PULMONARY INTERSTITIAL EMPHYSEMA AND CLINICAL-FEATURES IN FATAL ASTHMA

Using retrospective histological material and clinical data from the N ew Zealand National Asthma Mortality Study, we investigated whether th ere was a relationship between the presence of pulmonary interstitial emphysema (PIE) and different clinical features in fatal asthma, in pa rticular precipitous asthma death. Histological evidence of PIE was de termined in sections from 12 of the 60 patients who had died from asth ma who fulfilled the pathological criteria for inclusion in the study. No significant correlation was found between the presence of PIE and the different clinical features examined. For example, of the 13 cases with precipitous fatal asthma (i.e., death occurred within 10 min of the onset of the attack), only two had PIE. This suggests that PIE is not an uncommon histological feature of fatal asthma and may, in fact, significantly contribute to an asthma death, but its presence does no t appear to be associated with the specific clinical subgroups studied here.