Fatal Bronchial Asthma: A Series of Fifteen Cases with a Review of the Literature

Death in Asthmatics

“…Death from uncomplicated asthma was relatively uncommon in our series: well over half the patients dying in an attack of asthma had evidence of lung damage due to infection, and among asthmatics not dying in an attack of asthma the majority died as a direct result of pulmonary infection or its sequelae. Of the 160 cases from the literature reviewed by Earle (1953), 35% were said to be examples of uncomplicated asthma. This figure is certainly too high, for in some of the cases right ventricular hypertrophy was noted and some of the series reviewed were concerned only with cases dying in an attack of asthma.…”

“…Following the pioneer paper of Huber and Koessler (1922), a number of workers have published series of fatal cases and commented on the pathological findings. This literature has been reviewed by Unger (1952), by Earle (1953), and by Robertson and Sinclair (1954) and more recent reports are those of Alexander (1958) and Williams and Leopold (1958).…”

Sudden death in asthma.

“…Laennec, Osler (Silverglade, 1971), and Trousseau (Earle, 1953) have all been quoted as holding this belief. The first death from asthma with necropsy findings to be recorded in the English literature was in 1945 (Thomson, 1945).…”

Clinical relevance of airway remodelling in airway diseases

“…The pathology of asthma was initially described in case series of fatal asthma [13,[248][249][250][251]. These largely qualitative descriptions highlighted common features, including: the infiltration of the airway wall with eosinophils, neutrophils and lymphomononuclear cells; occlusion of airway lumens with mucus, cellular debris and eosinophil products (Charcot-Leiden crystals); and thickening of the airway wall with prominence of the smooth muscle and mucous glands both in the epithelium and in the submucosa.…”