Long-term management of childhood asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease. To improve the prognosis, achieve remission and even cure, it is important to keep patients in good control by appropriate long-term management. Evaluation of asthma severity is thus pivotal to choose treatment plan for each patient. One needs to take present medications into consideration to determine “real” severity, which is different from symptoms on current therapy. Once good control is achieved, step-down of treatment may be planned while keeping symptoms on current therapy under intermittent level.