Definition of asthma

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory lung condition, clinically defined as the combination of variable respiratory symptoms (e.g. wheeze, breathlessness, chest tightness, cough) and variable airflow limitation.

‘Asthma’ is a diagnostic label for a group of lung diseases with various disease mechanisms. 

Asthma phenotypes include allergic asthma, non-allergic asthma, aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease, asthma with obesity, adult-onset asthma, cough-predominant asthma, and asthma with persistent airflow limitation.[GINA 2025, Kuruvilla 2019]

The diagnosis of asthma in adults and adolescents is based on:

• a history of typical symptoms (wheeze, breathlessness, chest tightness, cough) that vary over time in frequency and severity
• documented excessive variability in expiratory airflow and/or evidence of airway inflammation.