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Berodual (Duovent) was tested in 40 bronchial asthma patients in comparison with a similar group treated with fenoterol. The results of FEV1.0 investigation showed no significant differences: increases of 15% were noted in both groups. In two other groups (40 bronchial asthma cases each) treated with berodual and Atrovent, respectively FEV1.0 values were significantly different: increased by 5% in the Atrovent group, and by 15% in the berodual one. Berodual showed the advantage of inducing the same strong bronchodilation of similar duration, though applied in doses by far smaller than fenoterol or Atrovent. A diminution of the clinical evolution score from 3 to 0.7, an increase by 15%; in FEV1.0, and no changes as regards the immunological tests (IgA, IgG, IgM, Clq, C3) were obtained in the group treated with berodual for 4 weeks.

Of the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COLD) and severe obstructive syndrome, 39 whose age was under 40 were selected. In 23 of them, the anamnesis revealed bronchopulmonary affections in childhood, that required admission into the hospital (19 were non-smokers). Of the rest of 16 patients, 14 were hard smokers that started to smoke before the age of 14. The functional picture was severely modified, similarly to that of the COLD patients in the 6th decade of life. This suggests that the degradation process started in the childhood, and that the chronic respiratory diseases and/or smoking at an early age had an important role.

The severity of dyspnoea was confronted to the value of the partial pressure of arterial oxygen at rest in a group of 51 patients with chronic non-specific pneumopathy associated to medium or severe ventilatory obstruction (VEMS under 1,5 I). The patients have been classified as "predominantly bronchitic" or "predominantly emphysematous" on the basis of clinical, radiological and biological criteria. In the group as a whole there was no relation between the partial pressure of arterial oxygen and the severity of the dyspnoea. The analysis of sub-groups evidenced a tendency to decrease of the oxygen pressure with accentuation of dyspnoea in the "bronchitis" group, although the coefficient value of this inverse correlation did not reach the treshold of statistical significance (r = -0,46; p greater than 0,05).