Impact

The number of people worldwide who suffer from incurable pulmonary diseases such as asthma and COPD continues to grow. More than one million people are afflicted in the Netherlands alone. Although lung diseases do not have a particularly high profile, they have a huge impact on both society and the well-being of patients.

Asthma

In the Netherlands, 600,000 people currently suffer from asthma, of whom 100,000 children. Because their lungs are chronically irritated, they often have problems breathing. Asthma can be suppressed by medicines; however, these remedies only address the symptoms and not the chronic inflammation. As a result, more than 2700 children are admitted to hospital each year. Furthermore, asthma is a growing problem: more and more children are diagnosed as suffering from this disease. In the Netherlands alone, 19,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.