How to manage a child with difficult asthma?
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Children with difficult asthma have significant morbidity and fail to achieve asthma control despite being prescribed high dose maintenance treatment. If control remains poor after diagnostic confirmation, detailed assessments of the reasons for asthma being difficult-to-control are needed. Underlying modifiable factors including non-adherence to medication, persistent environmental exposures that trigger asthma symptoms and psychosocial factors contribute to poor control in these patients. AREAS COVERED: The focus of this review is to provide a practical approach to the diagnosis and management of difficult asthma including an overview of long term assessments to identify potential progression to true, severe asthma. A multi-disciplinary team is critical to enable modifiable factors to be identified and addressed. Significant resources are required to manage paediatric difficult asthma optimally and only specialist centres should be tasked with the assessment of these patients. Although this may have an impact on healthcare resources, long term benefits for lung health are significant. Expert commentary: The management of paediatric difficult asthma is not simple and involves numerous professionals with varied expertise. However, if it is not undertaken with the appropriate skills, there is a significant risk of children receiving inappropriate invasive investigations and therapies that will have no impact on morbidity.
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If modifiable factors are addressed, this should result in better asthma control, including improvement in symptoms and reduction in severe asthma attacks.
“If these modifiable factors are addressed, this should result in better asthma control, including improvement in symptoms, and reduction in severe asthma attacks (62, 63).”
From Epidemiology of Asthma in Children and Adults (2019) · cites this paper as [62]
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- Authors
- Saglani, S., & Fleming, L.
- Affiliations
- Royal Brompton Hospital (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Saglani, Sejal
- Venue
- Expert Review of Respiratory Medicine
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2016-06-02
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 873-879
- ISSN
- 1747-6348 (ISSN-L)
- 1747-6356
- OpenAlex
- W2396327310
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 0.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Expert Review of Respiratory Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health Research (CDF-2014-07-019)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Asthma and respiratory diseases
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Occupational exposure and asthma
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine › Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Research
- Keywords
- difficult-to-treat asthma, childhood asthma, asthma control, medication adherence, environmental exposure, psychosocial factors, multidisciplinary team, asthma diagnosis
- MeSH terms
- Asthma, Child, Environmental Exposure, Humans
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