GINA recommendations in adults with symptomatic mild asthma and a smoking history

N.C. Thomson and R. Chaudhuri raise an important issue about treatment recommendations for patients with asthma who have a significant smoking history. The exclusion of such patients from most asthma studies appears to have largely been driven by the requirement by regulators for pure "asthma" and "COPD" populations in pharmacotherapy studies that are designed for obtaining regulatory approval. However, once that is obtained, there is an important need for additional clinical trials to be performed in broader populations, and with more pragmatic designs, to increase the generalisability of evidence to clinical practice. Considering the large number of randomised controlled trials in asthma in the past 20 years, very few studies have included patients with a significant smoking history; N.C. Thomson and R. Chaudhuri are to be commended for their work in this area.
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Original Articles: Correspondence Source Type: research