How do we monitor asthma control?

Abstract

The present consensus on asthma management includes avoidance of triggers, education, regular follow-up, and an action plan that relies on symptoms and lung function measurements for the monitoring of disease severity. Inclusion of objective measurements for monitoring seems to be important because patients and physicians may not always recognize asthma symptoms or their severity. However, the additional value of monitoring peak flow and symptoms in guiding asthma therapy has not been well established. Furthermore, it can be questioned whether a treatment strategy which is solely based on optimizing symptoms and lung function leads to optimal control of asthma in each individual patient, since airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and airways inflammation may persist. The chronicity of such abnormalities may lead to airways remodelling, thereby worsening the long-term outcome of asthma. It has been shown that AHR provides prognostic information on asthma control, because it can serve as a valuable noninvasive surrogate marker of airways inflammation when added to the guides of asthma therapy. A limited increase in dose of inhaled steroids, instead of applying an increased dose indiscriminately, can be successfully tailored to the needs of the individual patient based on the degree of AHR. Such a strategy leads to both a better clinical outcome and a better histologic outcome. The present worldwide effort is to find alternative markers of airways inflammation in asthma that can be easily implemented in routine practice. In the near future, longitudinal studies will determine which parameter is potentially most useful in guiding asthma management.