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  Background & Objectives: Respiratory distress is one of the most important causes of children admission in hospitals. In most cases, it is due to pneumonia, asthma or acute bronchiolitis. Since theses diseases have a lot of symptoms in common, we decided to study these disorders in more details to facilitate the appropriate diagnosis and treatment based on clinical, laboratory and radiologic findings.

  Methods: 238 children who suffered from respiratory distress and were admitted to pediatric ward in Ghaem hospital were studied. This descriptive study was performed during 3 years including 2 retrospective and one prospective year. The relationship between variables was analyzed using chi-square test.

  Results: The patients were six months to five years old. Pneumonia (40.3%) asthma (30.3%) and bronchiolotis (16.8%) were the most common causes of respiratory distress. Totally, 61.1% of the patients were male. The mean age of the patients was 10.3 months in bronchiolitis and 36.6 months for asthma. The most common symptom among these three diseases was tachypnea. Most of the patients were admitted in winter and fall respectively. The main radiologic pattern in pneumonia was pulmonary infiltration and for asthma and acute bronchiolitis it was pulmonary hyperinflation.

  Conclusion: Proper attention to signs and symptoms as well as laboratory and radiologic fndings is necessary for accurate diagnosis. In this study the most common cause of respiratory distress in children under 5 was found to be pneumonia, asthma and bronchiolitis respectively.

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Background & objectives: Epidemiological and clinical studies have shown a close relationship between asthma and obesity. The present study examined the effect of obesity on the airway response to methacholine and the number of inflammatory cells in the bronchoalveolar fluid of ovalbumin-sensitized male rats.
Methods: Twenty-four male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups: normal diet (C+ND), OVA‐sensitized with the normal diet (S+ND), high-fat diet (C+HFD) and OVA‐sensitized with high‐fat diet (S+HFD). All animals were fed for 8 weeks with standard diet or high-fat diet, and then were sensitized with ovalbumin or normal saline for another 4 weeks while receiving the designed regimens. At the end of the study, the number of inflammatory cells in bronchoalveolar fluid (BALF) and tracheal responsiveness to methacholine were examined.
Results: In diet-induced obesity groups, weight and obesity indices increased (p<0.05 to p<0.001). The results also showed that tracheal responsiveness to methacholine in S+HFD group compared to S+ND group, was significantly increased (p<0.05). In addition, the number of inflammatory cells in the BAL, in the S+HFD group was higher than other groups (p<0.001).
Conclusion: the results of this study suggest that the response of the airways to methacholine and the number of inflammatory cells are increased in obese-asthmatic male rats.
 

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Background & objectives: Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world and Iran. Despite appropriate treatment, recent researches indicate that asthmatic patients have poor asthma control. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between educational level of asthmatic patients and asthma control indices.
Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was performed on 80 asthmatic patients admitted to Shahid Labbafinejad hospital. ESMAA questionnaire was used to collect data to assess the level of asthma control, according to ACT (Asthma Control Test) and 2016 GINA (the Global Initiative for Asthma) guidelines. Patient medication compliance was evaluated based on Morisky medication adherence scale (MMAS). ANOVA test (Regression and Pearson correlation) and Chi-Square test were used for analysis of quantitative and qualitative variables, respectively. The P - value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results: Eighty asthmatic patients with an average age of 54.65 were entered to this study that of them 32 patients were at primary school level, 26 patients at high school level and 22 patients at university state. According to ACT test, 52.5% and 47.5% of patients were in control and uncontrolled state, respectively.
According to GINA classification, 30% of patients were in control, 45% in partially control and 25% in uncontrolled state. According to MMSA scale, 20% of patients were high adherent to medicine, 40% were moderate adherent and 40% were low adherent. In this study, there was no significant correlation between the asthma control in terms of ACT and patients' educational level. Also, there was no significant relationship between sex, asthma control and medication adherence. In addition, there was no significant relationship between educational level and drug adherence.
Conclusion: The results suggest that there was no relationship between asthma control indices and patient's educational level. Perhaps other factors, other than education, affect the asthma control indices and medication adherence which requires more studies.