A 19-year-old white female, has a history of hay fever, which seems to get worse during the summer months. After a weekend campi
ng trip, she developed difficulty breathing and needed to seek care for these symptoms, diagnosed as an exacerbation of asthma. She develops wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness. What is the immune response that is causing these problems
When the body is exposed to allergens or irritants, it will trigger the immune systems through different mechanism. However, the common pathway would result to multi-cellular inflammation, enhanced bronchial responsiveness, airflow obstruction and activation of immunological cell infiltration. Here, the inflammatory cell infiltrate are composed of varying amounts of eosinophils, neutrophils, and lymphocytes.
Moreover, T cells in the lung appear to orchestrate an immune response with a strong T helper type 2 (Th2) component when allergens drive the process.
The thymus lies in the chest behind the breastbone and above the heart. Relatively large in infancy, it increases in size until puberty and thereafter shrinks to only a few grams in old age.
