Asthma in Adults: Diagnosis & Therapy

Asthma in Adults: Diagnosis and Therapy provides a practical, evidence-based, and clinically focused guide to the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term management of asthma in adult patients. Although asthma is often considered a common chronic respiratory disease, adult asthma presents unique diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. Compared with childhood disease, adult asthma more frequently involves late-onset presentation, non-allergic phenotypes, occupational exposure, persistent airflow limitation, and multiple comorbidities that may complicate recognition and management. This book has been developed to provide clinicians, trainees, and healthcare professionals with a structured and contemporary reference for addressing these complexities in everyday clinical practice. The volume begins by examining the epidemiology and distinctive characteristics of adult asthma, highlighting its global burden, heterogeneity, and clinical variability. It explores the mechanisms underlying disease development, including chronic airway inflammation, airway hyperresponsiveness, structural remodeling, and the biological pathways that determine inflammatory endotypes and treatment response. The interaction between genetic predisposition, environmental exposures, respiratory infections, occupational sensitizers, obesity, smoking, and psychosocial factors is discussed in detail to provide a comprehensive understanding of disease susceptibility and progression. A major focus of the book is accurate diagnosis. It presents a practical diagnostic framework based on symptom evaluation, objective demonstration of variable airflow limitation, spirometry, bronchodilator reversibility testing, bronchial provocation testing, and biomarker assessment. Particular attention is given to differential diagnosis in adults, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma-COPD overlap, vocal cord dysfunction, cardiac disease, bronchiectasis, and other important mimics that may lead to diagnostic error.