Chlamydia/Mycoplasma: Do They Cause New-Onset Asthma in Adults?

The origins of adult-onset asthma are obscure. Five to six decades ago, some clinicians believed that asthma was primarily related to infection and that allergy, while important, played a secondary role (1,2). A decade ago, expert opinion held that asthma was a noninfectious allergic disease whose root cause was inflammation (3). Since then a growing body of evidence, reviewed in this book, has emerged to suggest again a significant role for viral and atypical infections in the pathogenesis of asthma.