Abstract
BackgroundIn Latin America, there is scarce information about severe asthma (SA) according to the ERS/ATS 2014 criteria. This study aimed to compare the demographic, socio, clinical characteristics, treatment, and use of healthcare resources between SA and non-severe asthma (NSA) patients in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted including 594 asthma patients from outpatient specialized sites. A descriptive analysis was performed comparing SA patients and NSA. Chi-square and Mann Whitney tests were used to assess associations between asthma severity and outcome variables.ResultsUsing ERS/ATS 2014 criteria, 31.0% of the patients were identified as SA. SA patients were older at diagnosis (mean age 31.64 years vs 24.71 years, p < 0.001) and had higher proportion of uncontrolled asthma than the NSA patients (64.1% vs 53.2%, p < 0.001). SA patients reported a significantly higher proportion of both hospital admission and emergency room (ER) visits due to asthma in the last year, compared with NSA patients, 8.7% vs. 3.7% (p = 0.011) and 37.0% vs. 21.7% (p < 0.001), respectively.ConclusionsSA patients were older, had greater proportions in some comorbidities and experienced increased healthcare utilization. Also, our results showed that even in patients using the last steps of treatment (GINA step 4 or 5), there was still a higher proportion of uncontrolled disease.
Highlights
In Latin America, there is scarce information about severe asthma (SA) according to the ERS/ATS 2014 criteria
Among the SA patients, 88.0% were classified as SA by the use of high ICS dose plus a second controller (Table 4)
The last 0.6% used OCS without ICS in combination and due to that it was considered as SA
Summary
In Latin America, there is scarce information about severe asthma (SA) according to the ERS/ATS 2014 criteria. Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways [1] and its prevalence is estimated to range from 0.2 to 21.0% globally [2] It is one of the most common chronic diseases among children [3] and young adults [2], and it is a significant cause of disability, high health resource utilization, and poor quality of life for those who are affected [1]. It accounts for considerable healthcare costs and loss of work productivity [4, 5]. SA is a heterogeneous disease with high variability in clinical presentation, physiological characteristics, and disease manifestation [6, 9]
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