Short-acting β-agonist use and its ability to predict future asthma-related outcomes

Factors associated with high short-acting β2-agonist use in urban children with asthma

“…15 A 5-fold higher rate of hospitalization within the past 3 months and almost a 3-fold higher rate of having a prior ICU admission in children with high SABA use was noted when compared to children with low to moderate SABA use. Parent report of daily SABA medication has been associated with very poor asthma control.…”

“…5,11-14 Use of 3 or more SABA canisters per year by children with asthma has been found to be associated with a 2-fold increase in risk of asthma-related hospitalization or emergency department (ED) visit. 15 …”

The Prevalence of Severe Asthma and Low Asthma Control Among Danish Adults

“…We found it reasonable to categorize subjects to have low asthma control if they had at least 1 marker of a moderate-to-severe exacerbation (a prescription of oral prednisolone, an ED visit, or hospitalization). 17,19,20 Although Expert Panel Report 3 guidelines define poor asthma control based on exacerbations as 2 or more in a 12-month period, 43 it could be problematic to use 2 prescriptions of prednisolone as a cutoff for low asthma control in this register study because 1 prescription may include treatment for more than 1 exacerbation.…”

“…Instead, we used prednisolone use, ED visits, hospitalizations, and excessive SABA use as surrogate markers of uncontrolled asthma. 17,19,20 All of the above markers are serious indicators of low asthma control. 1,42 We believe that using these markers gives a safe but also rather conservative estimate of poor asthma control compared with when asthma control is assessed in the classic way, by extent of daily symptoms, limitations in physical activity, low lung function, and so forth.…”

“…17 An exacerbation was defined as either a minimum of 1 redemption of an oral prednisolone prescription or hospitalization and/or ED visit associated with an ICD-10 code for asthma, status asthmaticus, pneumonia, dyspnea, or respiratory insufficiency. [18][19][20] Low asthma control was defined as high SABA use (!600 doses of SABA) and/or at least 1 exacerbation in the 1-year period of observation, as illustrated in Figure 2.…”