2024-02-09 03:00:00
The goal: remission. The path: Targeted, tailored therapies. What has already been done for rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is now also being used in the treatment of bronchial asthma. And despite déjà vu, it needs a fresh look.
It is a milestone that it has become a reality that many people with these conditions, including those who are seriously ill, cannot be cured, but at least can be freed from signs of illness in the long term. And with it also complications that were previously often due to frequent or even long-term use of systemic glucocorticoids. Disease-modifying therapies, especially biologics, help save this.
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However, keeping track of all the new active ingredients as a non-expert is becoming increasingly challenging. Especially since the care of the approximately five million patients in Germany with asthma – unlike rheumatism or chronic inflammatory bowel disease – has always been primarily in the hands of family doctors. Biologics will remain the domain of specialists for the foreseeable future.
However, it is all the more important for general practitioners to determine the phenotype from the outset, to assess the prognosis using biomarkers and to refer people with severe or foreseeable severe disease in a timely manner. And now is the time to do away with decades-old routines and say goodbye to systemic glucocorticoids and short-acting betamimetics wherever alternatives exist.
No more carelessness on the one hand and therapeutic nihilism on the other. The traffic light for a better future for people with asthma is green. Now it’s time to get going.
#Déjà #asthma #therapy