Final event
All children in this series collapsed and had resuscitation outside of
the hospital. Although these deaths occurred in the hospital, all
children had evidence of severe anoxic brain injury or brain death
shortly after arrival to hospital.
On history, the final event was described as having an acute onset of
symptoms (within 3 hours) in half of the subjects and chronic onset
(within days) in the other half.
Post mortem examinations in two patients showed findings consistent with
asthma including mucous plugging of small bronchioles, eosinophilic
inflammation, basement membrane thickening, smooth muscle hypertrophy
and goblet cell metaplasia regardless of whether the attack was acute or
chronic onset.