How to step down asthma preventer treatment in patients with well-controlled asthma - more is not always better.

Most of the benefit of asthma preventer inhalers is seen with low doses. However, many Australian patients are prescribed doses of inhaled corticosteroids that are higher than necessary to control their asthma. Prescribing unnecessarily high preventer doses increases the patient's risk of adverse effects.

Altered Innate Immune Responses in Neutrophils from Patients with Well- and Suboptimally Controlled Asthma.

Background: Respiratory infections are a major cause of asthma exacerbations where neutrophilic inflammation dominates and is associated with steroid refractory asthma. Structural airway cells in asthma differ from nonasthmatics; however it is unknown if neutrophils differ. We investigated neutrophil immune responses in patients who have good (AGood) and suboptimal (ASubopt) asthma symptom control.