The city has experienced several swift and sudden temperature drops this winter and they have troubled some people, especially those who suffer from asthma. At present, while many asthma patients depend on treatments such as inhaled corticosteroids and long-term controller medicines, a new group of medications called “biologics” has emerged that may considerably reduce patients’ dependence on traditional medicines.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lower airways. As a heterogeneous disease, asthma severity varies greatly among patients as a result of different phenotypes. Patients with severe asthma are usually refractory to standard treatment. The poor symptom control has not only seriously affected their daily life, it can also pose itself as an increased risk of death to those patients. What is more, severe asthma generates a heavy financial burden to the health care system, society as well as individuals.
Approximately 50-70% of uncontrolled asthma patients have type 2 asthma, which is characterized by type 2 inflammation, according to Dr. Raymond Tso, specialist in respiratory medicine. Type 2 inflammation is a specific type of immune response pattern that does have its positive side, such as eliminating parasitic infections. Excessive type 2 inflammation, however, can contribute to certain medical conditions such as eczema, allergic rhinosinusitis and some types of asthma.
For specialists like Dr. Tso, asthma is increasingly considered to be part of a multimorbidity syndrome. A large proportion of asthma patients has reported symptoms of co-existing type 2 inflammatory diseases such as eczema, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis and food allergies.
Currently, the basic treatment that doctors usually prescribe to asthma patients includes inhaled corticosteroids and other long-term controller medicines that can be added if oral corticosteroids fail to control the patient’s asthma.
Oral corticosteroids help to control inflammation. While experts advise that oral corticosteroids are for short-term use only, general practitioners may however prescribe them on a long-term basis for patients with frequent asthma flare-ups. It is not uncommon to see severe asthma patients combining quick-relief medicine, high-dose inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting bronchodilators.
Of course most general practitioners are well aware of the fact that oral corticosteroids have the side effects of posing a risk to the function of other bodily organs. In fact, if an asthma patient’s symptoms are still not controlled after long-term use of an oral corticosteroid, a general practitioner should refer the patient to a specialist to see how other treatment options can be applied.
