The Global Picture of Asthma after Guideline Changes and the COVID Pandemics
Prof. Désirée Larenas-Linnemann E-Mail
Director of Center of Excellence in Asthma and Allergy, Hospital Médica Sur, Mexico City, Mexico
Research Keywords: Allergen immunotherapy, asthma, severe asthma, urticaria, atopic dermatitis, guidelines
During the past five years, we have seen major changes on a global level in the management (diagnosis and treatment) of patients due to the pandemic. For asthma patients, there are two further issues that have played a role: COVID-19 itself, putting patients with uncontrolled and severe asthma at risk for more aggressive disease, whereas for the patients with milder asthma, the perception of being more at risk has been hard to counterbalance with evidence that this is not true. This real or perceived rise in health risk has led to a change in health-behavior for many patients with asthma. At the same time, the global asthma guidelines have undergone major changes, with some even referred to as a revolution in asthma treatment, with anti-inflammatory rescue and new biologic therapy being the most important changes in recommendations.
We would like to dedicate this issue of the journal to the way these changes have impacted asthma in specific regions of the world. Thus, we search for manuscripts on real world data on daily practice in asthma and allergic asthma management, but also updates in asthma and asthma-COVID research.
Keywords: Asthma, severe asthma, allergic asthma, biologics, small molecules, asthma guidelines, anti-inflammatory rescue therapy, allergen immunotherapy