May 1 marks the annual World Asthma Day. In keeping with this year’s theme, "You Can Control Your Asthma,” ISRAEL21c presents the top 10 Israeli innovations making that goal more attainable for the approximately 250 million to 300 million people suffering from the inflammatory lung condition.

Asthma is the world’s most common chronic disease among children. In the United States alone, 13 million school days are missed each year due to asthma, and asthma accounts for about 10.1 million missed work days for adults every year.

Here are just some of the ways Israeli ingenuity is helping to prevent asthma and simplify diagnosis, monitoring and treatment.

Descending the Tower, the imposing new state-of-the-art inpatient hospital at Hadassah’s Ein Kerem Medical Center, Joseph Mapa was impressed. The chief executive officer of Toronto’s Mt. Sinai Hospital said he’s seen innovations he would like to bring back to Canada. "It’s leading edge. Just the thinking behind it! Healing gardens, patient rooms, square feet, two beds per room, one bed per room, one window per patient…I mean these are huge developments,” Mapa told The Media Line. "It’s not something we wouldn’t do in the States, or in Canada, and it’s something you certainly want to see and showcased,” he adds.

For the first time in Israel, doctors at Hadassah’s Heart Institute used an innovative catheterization tool to successfully perform a new procedure on a 72 years old woman suffering from severe and uncontrolled chronic hypertension (high blood pressure). The minimally invasive outpatient procedure, which takes only 40 minutes to perform, blocks the over functioning nerves and permanently lowers blood pressure.

The results of a three-year study published recently in the prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics highlighted the importance of the identification of a gene that plays a major role in sexual development and its contribution to existing knowledge of genes that affect ovarian development and the ovulation process.

The results of a three-year study published recently in the prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics highlighted the importance of the identification of a gene that plays a major role in sexual development and its contribution to existing knowledge of genes that affect ovarian development and the ovulation process.

Research conducted at the Hadassah University Medical Center and recently published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, demonstrates that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is more effective than drug therapy in preventing the development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

An innovative procedure to remove cancerous tumors from the gastrointestinal tract was performed at the Hadassah University Medical Center’s Institute of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases recently. Using special instruments inserted through an endoscope – a surgical tool used to examine body cavities – surgeons ‘peeled’ the lesion from the gastrointestinal wall.