A new "risk index" could help physicians predict which adult patients with asthma will have attacks during the next year.
In a study presented last month at the American Lung Association/American Thoracic Society International Conference in Chicago, Ill, researchers from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and School of Public Health offered several predictors of poor outcomes. The most accurate predictors, they reported, are visiting the emergency department in the past 2 years and canceling activities in the past month.
Other important predictors of poor outcomes include nonwhite race, asthma symptoms experienced between attacks, and using more than 8 puffs a day of an inhaled beta agonist. The predictors were derived from surveys of 4742 managed care plan members treated for moderate to severe asthma.
From the surveys, the researchers developed 13 questions physicians can use to identify patients who are at risk for several types of . . . [Full Text of this Article]
