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. 2019 Jul 9;19(1):123.
doi: 10.1186/s12890-019-0871-1.

Asthma severity in four countries of Latin America

Hugo Neffen  1 , Felipe Moraes  2 , Karynna Viana  2 , Valentina Di Boscio  3 , Gur Levy  4 , Claudia Vieira  2 , Gabriela Abreu  2 , Claudia Soares  2
Affiliations

Asthma severity in four countries of Latin America

Hugo Neffen et al. BMC Pulm Med. .

Abstract

Background: In Latin America, there is scarce information about severe asthma (SA) according to the ERS/ATS 2014 criteria. This study aimed to compare the demographic, socio, clinical characteristics, treatment, and use of healthcare resources between SA and non-severe asthma (NSA) patients in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted including 594 asthma patients from outpatient specialized sites. A descriptive analysis was performed comparing SA patients and NSA. Chi-square and Mann Whitney tests were used to assess associations between asthma severity and outcome variables.

Results: Using ERS/ATS 2014 criteria, 31.0% of the patients were identified as SA. SA patients were older at diagnosis (mean age 31.64 years vs 24.71 years, p < 0.001) and had higher proportion of uncontrolled asthma than the NSA patients (64.1% vs 53.2%, p < 0.001). SA patients reported a significantly higher proportion of both hospital admission and emergency room (ER) visits due to asthma in the last year, compared with NSA patients, 8.7% vs. 3.7% (p = 0.011) and 37.0% vs. 21.7% (p < 0.001), respectively.

Conclusions: SA patients were older, had greater proportions in some comorbidities and experienced increased healthcare utilization. Also, our results showed that even in patients using the last steps of treatment (GINA step 4 or 5), there was still a higher proportion of uncontrolled disease.

Keywords: Asthma; Disease management; Epidemiology; Latin America; Severity.

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Conflict of interest statement

HN has nothing to disclosure; KV and FM are GSK employees; CV and GA are GSK complementary employees. CS, GL and VDB are GSK employees and holds GSK stocks.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Proportions of controlled and uncontrolled asthma patients in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. 2013–2015
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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