3 Public policies have been developed to promote both scientific knowledge about the disease and its management, as well as to organize assistance programs Everolimus solubility dmso in public health, which include, among others, the dispensing of medications. However, exacerbations continue to represent a significant number in statistics, with great impact on public and private healthcare systems.2 The multifactorial origin of the clinical-functional lack of disease control is well known; since the early 1970s, respiratory viruses have been associated with the triggering

of asthma exacerbations in adults and children.3 In the 1990s, the development of more sensitive and specific molecular techniques allowed for the increase in respiratory virus detection and therefore, ways to better explain this association. Studies using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as the detection technique, isolated or combined with traditional methods, observed positivity for respiratory viruses in up to 92.2% of episodes of acute asthma exacerbation in children.4 Considering the possibility of a causal relationship between respiratory virus infection and the triggering of asthma attacks in children, the implications http://www.selleckchem.com/GSK-3.html of this association, as well as the possibility of specific prophylaxis and therapy for these agents, special attention to this subject is justified.

Therefore, this literature review aimed to analyze articles, published between 2002 and 2013, assessing the association between asthma exacerbation and acute viral airway infection. A search was conducted in the PubMed, Lilacs and SciELO databases, using Atezolizumab mw the descriptors: “Asthma Exacerbation”, “Viral Infection”, and “Child”, resulting in a total of 283 references for that period. After selecting the articles published in Portuguese, English, Spanish,

or French, 195 articles remained. After reading the titles and abstracts, 42 original articles that assessed respiratory tract viral infection in asthmatic children during exacerbation were selected. Some articles of historical importance or review articles that included the three descriptors were added to generate the bibliography of this review. The list of references was inserted into Endnote X6 (Thompson Corp., CA, USA), a bibliographic citation management software. The most frequently identified respiratory viruses in association with asthma exacerbation were human rhinovirus (HRV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human adenovirus (hAdV), influenza (Flu), Parainfluenza (PFlu), human metapneumovirus (hMPV), and human coronavirus (hCoV). Of the listed viruses, most have RNA as the nucleic acid; their biological characteristics and taxonomy 5 are described in Table 1. The main transmission methods for these viruses are through contaminated fomites, droplets, aerosols, or direct contamination.