[New viewpoints in the pathogenesis and therapy of bronchial asthma].

The bronchial asthma is a polyetiologic syndrome with increased bronchomotoric excitability. The most important forms are the allergic asthma, the infection-conditioned one, the asthma conditioned by analgetics, the exertion and the irritation asthma. Apart from the direct affections on the smooth musculature and other target cells reflectorical mechanisms play an essential part. The first above all operate in the smaller respiratory tracts and stand in the foreground in the allergic bronchial asthma. The latter have above all an influence on the larger bronchi and are to be found in a typical way in irritation asthma. However, the transitions are fluent. The differentiation of the responsible mechanisms and the localisation of the bronchial obstruction give the possibility of a more aimed treatment. An essential improvement of the -- symptomatic -- treatment might be achieved, when the factors of the increasing bronchomotoric excitability are better known.