Many children whose asthma seems hard to treat are simply suffering from "bad management", British experts warn today.
As many as half the children who seem to have problematic and severe asthma can successfully be treated by standard therapies, according to the report in The Lancet.
Often children whose asthma does not improve are not getting their medications on time – or are exposed to asthma-causing environments such as smoke or allergic substances.
Professor Andrew Bush and Dr Sejal Saglani, of Imperial College, London, and the Royal Brompton Harefield, London, call for assessment of children who are hard to treat by a range of disciplines.
This should ensure the successful management of at least half these children, they say.
The basics of treatment include "adherence to treatment, inhaler technique, dose and frequency, and minimisation of exposure to environmental triggers such as allergens and smoke," they say.
They write: "Despite the interest in innovative approaches, getting the basics right in children with apparently severe asthma will remain the foundation of management in the foreseeable future."
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