© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
Asthma exacerbations
Management of asthma exacerbations
University of Wisconsin Medical School, Department of Medicine, Allergy/Immunology Section, Madison, WI 53792, USA
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor W W Busse
University of Wisconsin Medical School, Department of Medicine, Allergy/Immunology Section, Madison, WI 53792, USA; wwb@medicine.wisc.edu
A double dose is not enough
Keywords: asthma; exacerbations; inhaled corticosteroids; dosage
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The management of asthma consists of the regular use of anti-inflammatory medications and an action plan for worsening of symptoms or an asthma exacerbation. Guidelines for the treatment of asthma have recommended doubling the dose of maintenance inhaled corticosteroids for deteriorations in asthma control that are not responding to ß agonist rescue treatment in the usual manner.1,2 Although this approach has been advocated, evidence to support its effectiveness has been largely wanting.
In this issue of Thorax FitzGerald and colleagues3 and members of the Canadian Asthma Exacerbation Study Group evaluated this approach. They identified 290 patients with well characterised asthma, all of whom had a history of at least one previous asthma exacerbation—defined as an increase in symptoms and the need for a change in medication not more than 12 months and not less than 1 month before the start of the run in period. During the run
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Thorax 2004 59: 545.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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