We caught up with Dr Giselle Mosnaim (NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL, USA; University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA) around the current therapeutic options for asthma and their limitations, and what is known about the clinical utility of digital inhalers in the treatment of asthma.
The abstract ‘Relationship between medication adherence and self-assessment responses in patients with asthma.’ (Abstract number: 488) was presented at AAAAI 2023, February 24–27, 2022, #AAAAI2023.
Questions
- Could you give us a brief overview of the treatment paradigm for asthma? (0:26)
- What are the limitations of current therapeutic options for asthma? (1:24)
- What is known about the clinical utility of digital inhalers in the treatment of asthma? (2:00)
Disclosures: Giselle Mosnaim discloses consulting for Novartis and has received grant/research support from Novartis, Glaxo-SmithKline, Sanofi-Regeneron, and Teva.
Support: Interview and filming supported by Touch Medical Media Ltd. Interview conducted by Atiya Henry.
Filmed in coverage of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting 2023.
Transcript:
My name is Giselle Mosnaim. I am an allergist immunologist in the Division of allergy immunology, department of Medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem. And I’m also a clinical associate professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
Could you give us a brief overview of the treatment paradigm for asthma? (0:26)
Asthma is a disease that has two components. It has bronchial constriction and inflammation. It is also a condition that sometimes can go into remission and sometimes can flare. So the two basic treatments that we have are quick relief, otherwise known as rescue medications that work quickly to treat symptoms of wheeze, cough, chest tightness and shortness of breath. And then we also have controller medications that provide control of symptoms on a more long term basis and treat inflammation. And those include inhaled steroids, long acting bronchodilators, long acting antimuscarinic agents, antileukotrienes, biologics and others.
What are the limitations of current therapeutic options for asthma? (1:24)
There’s a number of limitations. One is that medicines only work if you take them. And many patients are concerned about taking inhaled steroids long term because they’re afraid of the side effects of inhaled steroids. However, data consistently shows that low dose inhaled steroids are much safer than relying on bursts of oral corticosteroids to treat symptoms of asthma exacerbations.
What is known about the clinical utility of digital inhalers in the treatment of asthma? (2:00)
Digital inhalers offer several benefits. One is that the patients can track their use of quick relief medications and also controller medications, so the patient can see patterns of overuse of quick relievers, or they can see if they’re missing doses of their controller medications. The patients can also see their inhalation quality. So if they’re taking the medication properly and they get this feedback on an app on their phone. So they use the digital inhaler, and the inhaler has a sensor attached to the medication. So every time they take a dose of their quick reliever or of their controller, it sends a message via Bluetooth to the app on their phone so they can track whether they’re taking their quick reliever, their controller, and for some of the digital inhalers, also inhalation quality. Another benefit is that health care professionals can also see quick reliever medication use, controller medication use and inhalation quality. So if the health care professional on the dashboard sees an uptick in quick reliever use, perhaps that might be an impending asthma exacerbation and they can try to contact the patient sooner to avoid a full exacerbation.
Subtitles and transcript are autogenerated
