ABSTRACT
Any potential strategy for the primary or secondary prevention of asthma has as a requirement a thorough knowledge of the natural history of the disease. Perhaps one of the most important obstacles affecting the development of such strategies has been, until recently, our limited knowledge of the most frequent ages of onset, its course, and the factors that determine remission and relapse. In addition, a lack of understanding of the heterogeneous nature of asthma made the factors associated with asthma initiation and progression more difficult to understand.
