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61% of patients being treated for severe asthma is woman. The data emerges from the publication in the European Annals of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of the first data on the larger population of Italian patients suffering from severe asthma included in the IRSA disease register – Italian Registry on Severe Asthma – sponsored by AAIITO (Italian Association of Allergologists and Hospital Immunologists and Territorial) and AIPO (Italian Association of Hospital Pulmonologists).
The register was attended by 71 Pneumology and Allergy Units distributed throughout the Italian territory. 851 patients with severe asthma were considered: as mentioned, the analysis of the data confirms that these are mainly women (61%), with an age average of 55 years, 60% overweight or obese, ex-smokers in 21% of cases and active smokers in 6% despite the disease, with onset of symptoms after age 40 in 25% of cases, and finally with an allergic substrate in 73 % of cases.
How to recognize the disease
Severe asthma is a form of asthma that needs maximal levels of therapy to be controlled or remain uncontrolled despite such massive treatment. It has an impact that is not limited only to daily symptoms or acute attack but causes a considerable emotional, economic and social burden for the patient and involves a constant and rapid deterioration in the quality of life.
For this reason, clinical parameters should not be the only criteria for evaluating severe asthma where, as in other chronic diseases, the patient’s experience can vary from individual to individual. Although two patients may have been diagnosed with the same type of disease and prescribed the same treatment, the level of satisfaction and the overall burden of the disease itself may be different also because it can change and change over time.
“Living well with severe asthma is not a simple challenge, both for the possibility of being refractory to treatment and for the increased risk of death and this makes the patient’s perspective an element that greatly influences his state of health – he explains. Antonino Musarra, Past President of AAIITO.
The numerous limits imposed by severe asthma, the all-encompassing emotional impact, the feeling of loneliness and “diversity”, represent a heavy perspective especially in younger patients, towards whom an empathic approach is important, useful for identifying convictions and behaviors that can represent some of the barriers that prevent an optimal approach “. We must not forget that in many cases the respiratory pathology is associated with other diseases.
“Patients with severe asthma from the IRSA register have at least one comorbidity in 87.5% of cases and at least two comorbidities in 77.4% – confirms Maria Beatrice Bilò. Comorbidities include not only diseases that have a common pathogenetic mechanism with asthma (e.g. rhinosinusitis and nasal polyposis), but also those related to asthma disease (such as gastroesophageal reflux) and those resulting from the use of cortisone for systemic route (eg osteoporosis and hypertension).
A campaign to inform
AIITO proposes a targeted awareness campaign for this condition. It’s called “Doctor I have asthma. Is it serious? ”, And has the objective of favoring the emergence of patients who suffer from it, about 5-10% of all asthmatics, who have remained unrecognized for many years and forced into a condition of resignation and impotence. Thanks to new diagnostic knowledge and new biological drugs, able to act with precision on the mechanisms of most forms of severe asthma, it is possible to indicate, in patients who need it, a targeted treatment for these forms.
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