Moving toward consensus on diagnosis and management of severe asthma in children

Abstract

Children with severe asthma continue to experience symptoms despite long-term treatment with high doses of corticosteroids. Moreover, the heterogeneous nature of asthma and the presence of several phenotypes have limited our ability to develop an optimized management strategy for these patients. Adequate management of severe asthma in children necessitates a detailed understanding of what makes asthma difficult to control, knowledge of the causal factors, review of diagnosis for accurate identification of pediatric patients with severe asthma and a precise definition of the phenotypes to be able to better target the therapy. Advancement in all these aspects is likely to improve childhood asthma treatment in the future. Although our understanding of severe pediatric asthma has grown in recent years, there remains a lack of consensus and clarity around critical aspects of this condition. This review attempts to present a harmonized view on the definition of severe asthma in the pediatric age group, identification of phenotypes and diagnosis, the inflammatory cascade, pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment strategies, considerations for follow-up and referral to specialists, and disease prevention strategies.