الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in which many cells and cellular elements play a role. The chronic inflammation is associated with airway hyperresponsiveness that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing, particularly at night or in the early morning. These episodes are usually associated with widespread, but variable, airflow obstruction within the lung that is often reversible either spontaneously or with treatment. Asthma is a common disorder worldwide. The World Health Organization recently stated approximately 300 million people have asthma. Asthma is not distributed equally throughout the world; industrialized, Western countries have a higher incidence. In asthma, the importance of airway inflammation has been well established. Beside the airway inflammation, systemic inflammation may exist in asthma.
C-reactive protein (CRP) was identified in the plasma of patients with pneumonia and was named for its ability to bind and precipitate the C-polysaccharide of pneumococcus. C-reactive protein is one of the acute phase proteins, the serum or plasma levels of which rise during general, nonspecific response to a wide variety of diseases. The CRP levels rise in serum or plasma within 24 to 48 hours following acute tissue damage, reach a peak during the acute stage and decrease with the resolution of inflammation or trauma. Current testing methods including latex agglutination, nephelometry, and radial immunodiffusion (RID) have the general disadvantages of low sensitivity, whereas enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) provide the highest sensitivity and specificity.