Asthma is a heterogeneous inflammatory disease characterized by increased airway hyper-responsiveness to external stimuli such as irritants. One may speculate that asthmatics are more sensitive to irritants in the air than healthy subjects, i.e. react at lower concentrations. We reviewed the scientific support for this speculation and investigated to what extent asthma is considered when setting exposure limits and guidance values. We found that the experimental studies comparing healthy and asthmatic subjects are often inconclusive. Still, the available studies are underused, by expert committees and industry alike. Data for a few irritants suggest that asthmatics are up to three-fold more sensitive than the healthy. The most abundant data were found for sulfur dioxide. Here, a benchmark concentration analysis suggests a nine-fold difference in sensitivity. Based on these data a default assessment factor of 10 is suggested when setting exposure limits and guidance values for irritants.

哮喘是一种异质性炎性疾病，其特征在于气道对外部刺激物（如刺激物）的过度反应性增加。一个人可能会推测，哮喘病患者比健康受试者对空气中的刺激物更敏感，即以较低的浓度起反应。我们回顾了对此推测的科学支持，并调查了在设定暴露极限和指导值时考虑哮喘的程度。我们发现，比较健康受试者和哮喘受试者的实验研究通常没有定论。尽管如此，专家委员会和行业都没有充分利用可用的研究。少数刺激物的数据表明，哮喘患者的敏感性比健康者高三倍。发现最丰富的二氧化硫数据。这里，基准浓度分析表明灵敏度相差九倍。根据这些数据，在设置刺激物的暴露极限和指导值时，建议使用默认评估因子10。