title: New perspectives in pharmacological treatment of mild persistent asthma.
abstract: Until the relationship between symptoms, lung function tests, airway inflammation, airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR), exacerbations and remodelling is clarified, regular treatment seems to enable a greater disease control than on-demand therapy in most patients with mild persistent asthma. Current guideline classification based on disease severity remains a cornerstone in asthma management. However, the heterogeneity of asthma, the growing emphasis on subphenotypes, including molecular phenotypes identified by -omics technologies, and their possible implications in terms of different asthma severity, progression and therapeutic response, are changing current asthma treatment mainly based on disease severity classification to a pharmacological strategy more focused on the individual patient.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Largo Francesco Vito, 1-00168 Rome, Italy. pmontuschi@rm.unicatt.it
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Montuschi
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Barnes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents