The first year of treatment predicts the prognosis of asthma over 25 y-A prospective study.

Background: An investigator-driven, real-life follow-up study of adult-onset steroid-naïve, newly diagnosed asthma (162 patients) to investigate the treatment results over the 25-year course of the disease and whether the first treatment year's forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV ) predicts the long-term prognosis.

Methods: Eighty-three per cent of the 133 living patients participated in the 25-year examinations. At this visit, basic asthma examinations including lung function, as well as questionnaires for health-related quality of life (HRQoL), GINA and the Asthma Control Test, were used for evaluation.

Ten-year follow-up of early intensive self-management guidance in newly diagnosed patients with asthma.

Objective: We assessed the 10-year effectiveness of self-management guidance in a prospective follow-up study of patients with asthma when inhaled corticosteroids were used from the beginning in the treatment.

Methods: Consecutive newly diagnosed asthmatics (n = 162) were randomized: 80 to an intervention group (IG) and 82 to a control group (CG). Lung function (LF), airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR), and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) were examined at 10 years.

The Finnish national asthma programme: communication in asthma care--quality assessment of asthma referral letters.

Aims And Objectives: The Finnish National Asthma Programme, which was launched in year 1994, considered the management of asthma as a community problem. The role of the primary health care in the management of asthma was emphasized. Optimal asthma management includes good communication between health care professionals.

Asthma Programme in Finland: high consensus between general practitioners and pulmonologists on the contents of an asthma referral letter.

Aims: The purpose of the present study was to define quality criteria for an asthma referral letter using a national co-operative effort between general practitioners and pulmonologists.

Methods: A consensus-seeking expert panel representing primary and secondary health care merged evidence from the literature and existing national and local asthma programmes to produce 19 provisional criteria to be included in an asthma referral letter. These criteria were contained within a national questionnaire review which was sent out to groups of Finnish physicians.