Clinical Effects of Spa Therapy on Bronchial Asthma: 6. Comparison among three kinds of spa therapies

「INTRODUCTION」 Spa therapy is a well known therapy for various diseases including bronchial asthma. The clinical course of patients with bronchial asthma is affected by many factors (allergy, inflammatory factors, environmental factors, endocrinal condition, autonomic nervous system, mental factors). Of these, inflammatory factors have been noted to play an important role in the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma 1)-3). Spa therapy has been suggested to be effective on each factor. We have been investigating about the clinical effects of spa therapies on patients with bronchial asthma 4)-7) We examined the clinical effects of both the individual spa therapy (i.e. swimming training in a hot spring pool, inhalation of iodine salt solutions and fango therapy) and complex spa therapy which comprises the combination of each therapy and environmental factors. 「MATERIALS AND METHODS」 Thirty-six patients with bronchial asthma, 16 women and 20 men, between 21 and 73 years (mean, 56.8 years), were selected for this study.