Asthma Awareness

In a video interview, Kartik V. Shenoy, MD, professor of thoracic medicine and surgery and associate program director of the pulmonary and critical care fellowship at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, discussed:

• recent developments in asthma treatment, changing guidelines on how to treat mild asthma and adverse effects of traditional albuterol leading to a “paradigm shift” in how the disease is understood;
• increased understanding of asthma risk factors, including family history and childhood respiratory issues, advancements in occupational exposures, smoking and obesity;
• alternative therapies beyond the traditional inhaler, including new injectable medications for poorly controlled asthma that have “revolutionized lives”;
• continuing concerns regarding COVID-19, the evolving understanding of the relationship between asthma and COVID, and a surprising decline in asthma exacerbations;
• benefits of remote health practices in treatment, including with digital inhalers, allowing for increased compliance with doctors and real-time access through telemedicine;
• tips for asthma patients to lead a healthy lifestyle, and how patients and providers should communicate to help improve quality of life;
• information on how to manage the progression of asthma in patients and questions to ask when a patient’s asthma worsens; and
• differences between severe and mild asthma treatments, including diagnosing different phenotypes of asthma and how they differ from one another.