Chest
Preliminary ReportsHow Should We Quantify Asthma Control?: A Proposal
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Materials and Methods
This survey was done in 42 consecutive patients (25 female and 17 male patients) with asthma of different degrees of severity attending the Laval Hospital Asthma Clinic and Clinical Research Center. Mean age was 34.8 years (SEM, 2.3). All were receiving an inhaled β2-agonist on demand (albuterol or terbutaline), 23 patients were receiving an inhaled corticosteroid (mean daily dose, 744 μg [SEM, 94]), and 7 patients were receiving a long-acting β2-agonist (salmeterol, 50 μg bid; or formoterol,
Results
The percentage control score for the last 2 weeks of clinical assessment went from 60 to 100% (mean ± SEM, 87.8 ± 1.4%) [Fig 2]. For FEV1 (percentage of optimal value, patient’s best FEV1 in percentage of predicted value), percentage control score went from 40 to 100% (mean, 88.6 ± 1.8%).
For the quality-of-life questionnaire, the global score was 5.99 ± 0.13; it was 5.83 ± 0.16 for symptoms, 6.29 ± 0.11 for activity limitation, 6.23 ± 0.14 for emotional function, and 5.63 ± 0.19 for
Discussion
The main goal of asthma treatment is to achieve adequate control of the disease in order to reduce its consequences and, ideally, its severity over time.1,2 This can be obtained through patient education, environmental control, and individualized pharmacotherapy. Although current clinical practice guidelines suggest specific criteria for assessing asthma control, and various questionnaires have been proposed to assess those criteria, there are very few methods available for globally quantifying
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We are grateful to Mariette Veillette, Sylvie Carette, and Lori Henig Schubert for their help with the preparation of this article.
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