Obstructive Airway Diseases

By completing this question set, you will be able to distinguish the major obstructive airway diseases by their pathophysiologic mechanisms: asthma (reversible eosinophilic airway inflammation with bronchoconstriction), emphysema (permanent alveolar wall destruction from protease-antiprotease imbalance), chronic bronchitis (mucous gland hypertrophy with chronic productive cough), bronchiectasis (permanent bronchial dilation from chronic infection-inflammation cycle), cystic fibrosis (CFTR dysfunction → dehydrated mucus → progressive obstruction and bronchiectasis), and primary ciliary dyskinesia (immotile cilia → impaired mucociliary clearance → sinopulmonary disease).