The misuse of asthma drugs

Abstract

There are three major problems with asthma care in the USA and misuse of asthma drug therapy contributes to each. Asthma patients suffer from symptoms regularly partly because healthcare providers do not understand the Expert Panel Report III (EPR3) recommendations on assessing asthma symptoms to determine drug treatment and, consequently, undertreat the disease. Asthma patients experience exacerbations often in part because the EPR3 provides limited guidance on using exacerbation risk to guide asthma treatment, again leading to undertreatment. The EPR3 recommends inhaled corticosteroids as the preferred therapy for mild persistent asthma but American healthcare providers disregard this recommendation based on different perceptions about the risks and benefits of inhaled corticosteroids and choose drug treatments with higher healthcare costs.