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JACI Highlights - December 2006
McCoy et al – Predicting episodes of poor asthma control in treated asthmatics
In the December 2006 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, McCoy and colleages attempted to predict episodes of asthma exacerbation based on certain factors. Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disorder in the United States, and despite guidelines, morbidity, mortality, and costs associated with asthma continue to rise. Therefore, early and reliable prediction of exacerbation and loss of asthma control would be an important advance. The authors sought to determine the factors that appear to be associated in the short term with the occurrence of asthma episodes in order to facilitate the development of improved approaches to predicting them. They found that symptom questionnaires were the best predictors of future asthma exacerbations. In regression analyses, questionnaire results, smoking, lung function, ethnicity, and asthma history were associated with asthma episodes in people over 10 years of age, while only asthma history was predictive in those under the age of ten. Simple assessments may be helpful in identifying patients most at risk for future asthma episodes.
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