Asthma is a chronic disease, characterized by the inflammation of the airways and associated with the obstruction of variable outflow. It manifests itself in the one or more of the following symptoms: difficulty in breathing, wheezing, cough and chest tightness.

In children, the diagnosis of asthma is quite difficult because of its complex nature in the young people. It is therefore a big challenge to accurately diagnose asthma in the juniors and recent guidelines from British Thoracic Society recommended that the basis on which diagnosis is recommended be recorded and the children be investigated and managed further, with regards to the probability of asthma. In adults, wheeze is considered as synonymous to asthma but in children, there are so many causes of wheeze, and different phenotypes of wheezing are increasingly getting recognized.

There is no single confirmatory diagnostic test for asthma. The tests have to corroborate the diagnosis with changes in the function of the lung or response to treatment.