Asthma

Eight-year-old Kenny Brand of Arnold was enjoying the karate class yesterday at Camp Superkids as much as anyone. But about 40 minutes into the exercise, he wanted to be excused."

A 17-year-old resident at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School for Boys died early Friday morning after suffering an attack of "asthma-like symptoms," according to a spokeswoman for the Cub Hill reformatory.An autopsy has been scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.The death of the teen-ager, who was not identified because of his age, has prompted the Public Justice Center, a local civil rights organization, to seek broader medical care for youths sentenced to the school by juvenile courts.

A Baltimore woman charged in a lawsuit yesterday that three doctors and an area hospital allowed her son's asthma medication to reach toxic levels, causing a catastrophic seizure that left him profoundly brain damaged.Dorothy Hook, the mother of 12-year-old Anthony G. August, said she wants not only to recoup money to provide for her son's needs, but also to alert parents and doctors to the dangers of the drug theophylline when it is not properly monitored."He doesn't play with toys. He doesn't feed himself.

I was prescribed Advair for asthma. It worked well for my breathing problem, but my skin became thin, and I started bruising badly. Then I experienced horrible damage to my skin, with deep gashes from a slight bump. One day, I leaned on the bathroom counter, and several inches of the skin on my arm peeled off. My lung specialist insisted Advair was not responsible for thinning skin. My pharmacist said it could be from steroids. She checked my meds and told me Advair contains a steroid. My doctor still said it was not the medication.

The death rate from asthma has more than doubled in the United States since 1978. And worried officials of the National Institutes of Health attribute the trend in part to the lack of education and training of the primary-care doctors who treat the vast majority of asthmatics.Dr. Michael A. Kaliner, chief of the allergy section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did not mince words in criticizing the medical care that most asthmatics receive and the lack of understanding by many doctors about new treatments.

The children had to leave kickball games just as the fun started. They were taunted by classmates and often missed school. Worse, they were terrified of suffocating in an asthma attack.Years of apprehension and repeated bouts of struggling to breathe have shaped the lives of thousands of Baltimore children. And during the last decade, national figures show that asthma cases have soared.But in East Baltimore, a pilot project that educates children, parents and teachers -- and even sends health workers into homes to fight cockroaches and other conditions that worsen asthma -- has gained ground.

A panel of health experts updated federal guidelines yesterday for treating asthma - a disease that continues to beleaguer Maryland and hits particularly hard in African-American communities. The National Institutes of Health report, containing the first new guidelines in a decade, urges doctors to treat underlying problems that can worsen asthma, such as obesity, and make sure that patients continue taking medications even when symptoms abate. The panel recommends that patients use two kinds of drugs: emergency medications to relieve temporary symptoms and long-term controllers to reduce the risk of life-threatening asthma attacks.

WASHINGTON - -An analysis in 10 states of people hospitalized with the pandemic strain of H1N1 influenza shows that asthma is by far the most common underlying condition associated with severe cases of the disease. In children, other much rarer chronic conditions, such as sickle cell anemia, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy, are also predisposing patients to life-threatening bouts of the virus, federal health officials said. Epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the experience of about 1,400 people older than 18, and 500 children, who had been hospitalized in 10 states since the new influenza strain emerged in April.

The Carroll County school system announced yesterday that it will consider adding a "good Samaritan" clause to its "zero-tolerance" drug policy in the wake of an incident involving a middle school student who shared her asthma inhaler with an ailing friend.Christine Rhodes, a 12-year-old honor student at Mount Airy Middle School, shared her asthma medication with Brandy Dyer, 13, who was having a severe asthma attack on the bus ride home from school April 22.Christine's parents said they were told at first that their daughter's school record would be marred for three years because she unwittingly violated a policy against distributing prescription medication to schoolmates.

Nova Pharmaceutical Corp., the Baltimore drug developer, has announced a potentially significant breakthrough that could someday result in better treatments for colds, asthma and pain caused by inflammation.Using computer-assisted chemistry, researchers at the company have developed a new class of drugs that block inflammation-causing substances released by the body.Nova began work on the drugs, called "bradykinin antagonists," in 1985, based on research performed at the University of Colorado.