• Asthma
• epidemiology
• pathogenesis
• education
• adherence
• inhaled corticosteroids

Asthma articles were among the most frequently cited and downloaded items from the Thorax website. The BTS-Sign Asthma Guidelines topped the list, indicating the important role Thorax has played in supporting the respiratory community and the British Thoracic Society in particular.

One of the more important articles covering asthma epidemiology summarised the findings of Phase III of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Children (ISAAC).1 This study, undertaken in some 106 centres in 56 countries, compared the prevalence of asthma symptoms 5–10 years after the original surveys. In 6- to 7-year olds, asthma prevalence (wheeze in the last 12 months) was 11.6% and in the 13- to 14-year-old children 13.7%. Comparing trends over time, prevalence had fallen in many western countries but had increased in some other countries including Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. These important ecological data triggered much discussion about the likely causes of the observed trends but failed to generate a unifying hypothesis that could be tested. Thorax also carried a number of other papers generated by the ISAAC study, among the more interesting of which examined the effect of diet on asthma and allergic sensitisation.2 This report, based on ISAAC Phase II data, examining >50 000 children demonstrated that fruit intake was associated with a lower prevalence of current wheeze and conferred a lifetime protective effect, as did consumption of vegetables and …