Ashok One Hospital

Hi,

I am Dr. Parthiv Atul Kumar Shah, Pulmonologist, Ashok One Hospital, Sanchaiti Hospital, Rohit Nursing Home & Apex Super speciality Hospital, Mumbai. Today I will talk about bronchial asthma. Why is this so important in the current scenario. India's rate is 42% in bronchial asthma. The rest of the world accounts for less than 120%. What is bronchial asthma? It is characterized by 4 most common symptoms. First, wheezing in which the patient gets whee sound from the chest. 2nd is a cough where the patient feels chest tightness. 3rd is breathlessness, it may be at rest or at the time of the exertion.

What are the respiratory factors or how do you get in bronchial asthma? It is usually a hereditary disease. It is usually precipitated by exposure to allergens. The most common allergens which we have around us are house dust allergens, grass, pollens, fungi, cockroaches, pesticides and more. How do we diagnose bronchial asthma? There are 2 most common methods which are used for diagnosing bronchial asthma. First is the peak respiratory flow rate which is a routine test and can be done in OPD. 2nd, most important is spirometry.

By this, we check the lung value and capacity in which the patient is asked to blow through a small pipe and we check the lung values. After this, we recheck the values, if there is significant reversibility, it suggests that the patient has bronchial asthma. This is the diagnostic criteria for bronchial asthma. Now, how do we treat the patient? The most important treatment for bronchial asthma is by bronchodilator. The other forms of therapy include chest physiotherapy, vaccination. Risk factors for bronchial asthma are gastritis, obesity which are the few and allergic rhinitis in the particular patient. Vaccination is much more important as recurrent infection may precipitate bronchial asthma.

For more information, you can contact me through Lybrate.

Thank You.

Hello,

I am Dr. Parthiv Atul Kumar Shah, Pulmonologist. Today I will talk about tuberculosis. So, the first thing comes to mind is what is tuberculosis? Tuberculosis is an infected disease. It can infect any part of the body except hair and nails. It preferably involves the lung, spine and lymph nodes. Why is it so important to study about tuberculosis? When you look at the health data coming from 2018 report of global health status, it says that India is the leading country for tuberculosis. How do we get tuberculosis? So, tuberculosis is usually caused by a bacterium: mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is usually being spread by the humans while speaking, coughing and sneezing which is released into the air. Then it is inhaled by another person and another person gets the infection. All of us do not manifest the disease. The people who manifest the disease are the people who are suffering from tuberculosis and rest are the only infected organism. What are the signs and symptoms due to which you feel you have got tuberculosis? First and foremost, if it is involving the lungs, the patient usually has the cough for more than 2 weeks, may and may not be associated with the blood in the sputum, breathlessness may be there, fever, unintentional weight loss, night sweat are a few of the symptoms.

The severe form of tuberculosis can involve brain, heart, kidney and adrenal glands. How do we diagnose tuberculosis? The first thing Dr usually does is a routine blood test. If the patient is coughing then the most important modality is a sputum test, chest x-ray. These are the 3 most important things. In rare cases in which the patient is not able to produce the sputum or if the patient is having the blood in the sputum, there is another test in which we can do, we can identify tuberculosis through bronchoscopy. Now, what is it? It is a tool through which we enter into the lung for the diagnosis modality. We take the sample of cough through a tube and then send it for the examination. Once the TB comes positive, the treatment is based on the categories which are followed by the WHO. The categories are 1, 4 and 5. Category 1 is of 6 months which is consist of drugs. Category 4 & 5 are drug-resistant and hence the treatment may vary from 2-3 years. And also you wanna contact me, consult me through Lybrate.

Thank You.