Respiratory experts recommend a new approach to asthma management strategy—one inhaler that provides quick symptom relief and addresses the root problem of the condition.
“We need two medications for optimal asthma treatment: a bronchodilator that opens the airways and provides quick symptom relief, and an inhaled steroid to deal with the inflammation,” said Timothy Ward Harrison.
Harrison is a professor of Asthma and Respiratory Medicine at the University of Nottingham and head of Respiratory Medicine at Nottingham University Hospital in the United Kingdom.
He emphasized the need to provide asthma patients with a treatment strategy that goes beyond short-term symptomatic relief, which is now the recommended approach of the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) 2020.
A comprehensive clinical trial program, which showed that Budesonide + Formoterol as needed was superior in terms of asthma control than short-acting beta 2 agonist (SABA alone), led to the changes in GINA 2020 asthma treatment guidelines.
The new GINA guidelines note that SABA overuse is associated with an increased risk of severe asthma attacks, and state that low-dose inhaled steroid plus formoterol is now the preferred reliever across asthma severities for patients who are prescribed maintenance and reliever therapy.
SABAs are a class of prescription drugs used to provide quick relief of shortness of breath and wheezing in people with asthma.
AstraZeneca Philippines supports the paradigm shift in asthma management.
In the Philippines, Budesonide/Formoterol or ICS/Formoterol is now an approved anti-inflammatory reliever across the entire asthma disease spectrum, including mild asthma that accounts for 20 to 30 percent of total asthma cases here in the country.
Further, Budesonide/Formoterol is indicated in the treatment of asthma to achieve overall control, including the prevention and relief of symptoms as well as the reduction of the risk of severe asthma attacks.
“Physicians want patients to take the inhaled steroid to control the inflammation, but patients want to take the reliever medication because it gives the quick symptomatic relief that they want. By combining an inhaled steroid and a reliever medication in one inhaler, you get the best asthma treatment that keeps both patients and physicians happy,” explained Harrison.
Camilo Roa, professor and former chairman of the Department of Physiology at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, added, “A treatment that combines an anti-inflammatory medication with a reliever medication can enhance medication adherence in Filipino patients with asthma, thereby improving outcomes and preventing asthma-related mortality.”
In the Philippines, an estimated 21 million Filipinos are asthmatic. Asthma deaths account for 2.37 percent of total deaths, putting Philippines second in asthma mortality in the world across all ages.