ABSTRACT
While attention has focused largely on airway inflammation and the effects of treatment on the allergic inflammatory process over the last decade, it is only more recently that questions have been asked about the impact of therapy on the structural airway changes in asthma. Many changes are encompassed within the term “ airway remodeling,” both structural and functional. The functional changes may relate to a temporary alteration in behavior of an air way component, due to modulation by inflammatory processes, or may be a functional abnormality that arises because of a derangement of the morpholog ical architecture of the airways. The former consequences should resolve with treatment that modifies the relevant inflammatory cascade, whereas the later may either be resistant to such therapy or have a different dose-response rela tionship to regulation than the initial inflammatory process. Before detailing the information available about the effects of differing asthma therapies on
the airway remodeling process, it is pertinent to consider the remodeling changes within the airways that could be monitored and the physiological consequences, measurement of which may provide indirect information con cerning drug intervention in asthma.
