الفهرس 
Historical Review
Diagnosis of AsthmaOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Asthma is the most common chronic disease of childhood, it is a worldwide problem that affects approximately 130 million people worldwide, during the last several decades, its prevalence has been increasing by 5% to 6% per year reaching rates of 30% to 40% in many countries. So, it is important to assess accurately the impact of such a wide spread illness and its treatment regarding efficacy and safety.
FOXP3 is a member of the forkhead/winged helix family that was identified as a transcriptional repressor that inhibits activation –induced cytokine expression in T cells. FOXP3 plays an essential role in development and function of T reg cells.
Investigations using approaches to understand FOXP3 function and regulation will have implication for improving treatment of allergic diseases like asthma.
In this case control study we evaluated the effect of corticosteroid therapy on expression of FOXP3 by measuring FOXP3 in blood of two asthmatic groups, one on corticosteroid therapy and the other not on corticosteroid treatment compared to healthy children.
The study sample was classified into three groups. Group A (20 asthmatic patients on C.S therapy),group B (20 asthmatic patients not receiving C.S therapy and group C (10 healthy children).
All children were age and sex matched with age ranging from 5-13 yrs.
All patients were subjected to full history taking with special emphasis on (duration of illness, assessment of asthma severity, way of treatment e.g. receiving CS or not), clinical examination was done for all patients .Investigation included pulmonary function test (FEV1%), CBC, ESR and measurement of our marker FOXP3 in blood.
Spirometric parameters (FEV1%) were significantly reduced in group A than group B according to the grade of asthma severity.
Regarding FOXP3 our study revealed marked statistical significant difference between the three studied groups. FOXP3 was markedly elevated in asthmatic patients than healthy children and significantly more elevated in asthmatics on C.S than those asthmatics not on C.S.
These findings may suggest that asthmatics express FOXP3 more than healthy as a natural body mechanism to suppress the allergic pathway.
Also corticosteroids may suppress the allergic pathway through enhancing expression of FOXP3.
Regarding route of corticosteroid intake it seemed not to affect the level of FOXP3.
In conclusion corticosteroid therapy is not only a potent anti-inflammatory but also causes upregulation of FOXP3 and potentiate its anti-inflammatory action and this may open many fields regarding new strategies of asthma treatment to increase its efficacy and decrease its adverse effects.