Disease control and treatment pathways of asthma patients after initiating ICS/LABA

Introduction: GINA guidelines recommend medium dose (MED) and high dose (HD) ICS/LABA as the preferred controller for step 4 asthma patients and clinicians should consider step up/down based on their patients’ asthma control. Limited data is available on how step 4 patients respond to ICS/LABA and how they step up/down in clinical practice. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink to assess control status of asthma patients in one year after initiating a MED or HD ICS/LABA between 2007 and 2015, and examined their treatment pathways within one year after the treatment initiation. Results: 29,229 and 16, 575 patients initiated MED and HD…