Immediate management of acute severe asthma in adults.

Asthma is a disease with an increasingly high incidence in the UK, tragically accounting for almost 2000 UK deaths per year (Jones and Morris, 1997). Acute severe asthma is potentially life-threatening, necessitating immediate assessment and management. This article covers the main types of asthma, the pathophysiology of asthma, and the principles and rationale for the immediate management of adults admitted to the accident and emergency department suffering from an acute severe asthma attack.

Allergy to flour and fungal amylase in bakery workers.

The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of respiratory symptoms and skin prick test findings in a group of 383 employees in a plant bakery population who had the greatest regular exposure to ingredient dusts. The prevalence of positive skin prick tests to fungal amylase was 16%, in contrast to 6% to wheat flour, suggesting that the principal sensitiser is fungal amylase and not flour. Furthermore, the findings suggest that symptomatic allergy to bread-baking ingredients is uncommon (3.

Work-related asthma in a population exposed to grain, flour and other ingredient dusts.

The purpose of the study was to determine the prevalence and causation of work-related asthmatic symptoms in a population exposed to grain, flour and other ingredient dusts. Where workers complained of asthmatic symptoms which were the result of dust exposure, follow-up aimed to identify whether the symptoms were the result of sensitisation or of non-specific irritation. A questionnaire was presented to 3,450 workers who had exposure to dust during the course of flour milling (528), bread baking (1,756), cake baking (209) and other activities in food preparation (957).