Pre-Asthma: Early Screening for Asthma

Asthma is a highly prevalent disease affecting between 3 and 400 million people worldwide For many it's a chronic lifelong disease which has profound implications on people's quality of life. For others, it can be fatal.

The burden of treating asthma is significant. It requires daily therapy, constant monitoring and many medications including inhalers, oral corticosteroids and monoclonal antibodies in some patients. However, these are extremely expensive and not all countries have authorised their use.

Now there are many risk factors for asthma which are universally recognised. But there are no routine screening programmes for asthma in 'at risk' individuals. So if we look at other conditions that have defined 'pre states'. Is there a state of 'pre-asthma' where we can intervene to stop full-blown asthma from developing?

A paper has been published in Frontiers on 'Pre-asthma: a useful concept for prevention and disease-modification? A EUFOREA paper', which can be read here. 

To explore this interesting quandary, we have invited Professor Glenis Scadding (EUFOREA Board Member & EUFOREA Rhinitis Expert Panel Chair) to join this EUFOREA news show.