5 April 2003
The future of asthma
The Royal Society of Medicine's meeting Key advances in the clinical managment of Asthma takes place on 15th April. Speakers include:
Asthma
vaccines, and other treatments in the pipeline
Dr Douglas Robinson, National Heart & Lung Institute, -
New Therapies
Some of the most promising future treatments for asthma
are based on a treatment nearly a hundred years old, Dr Robinson
will report. In the early years of the last century, doctors
discovered that they could control severe reactions to hayfever
by injecting patients with extracts of the grass pollen that
caused their symptoms, building their resistance a little
at a time. There are obvious disadvantages to this, since
too much of the allergen can trigger a fatal attack, but
modern scientists are developing ways of breaking the allergen
into smaller Sections - peptides - that are still effective
but no longer dangerous. Dr Robinson will report on the state
of research with these peptide "vaccines", as well as the
latest on other approaches that can disable or "switch off" the
allergic reactions.
How to get children to control their asthma
Dr Warren Lenney, North Staffordshire Hospital, - Paediatric
Guidelines
Most of us are bad at remembering to take medicines regularly,
points out Dr Lenney. It is often the basic things that make
the difference between children taking the right drugs and
controlling their asthma or failing to take them and putting
their health at risk. The most expensive inhaler can be one
a patient doesn't use - it has to be appropriate for the
child. Dr Lenney will discuss how primary and secondary care
workers can combine to make an effective asthma team: "Getting
patients to take their medicines appropriately is as important
as the medicine itself".
If "asthma
action plans" work, why aren't there more of them?
Professor Martyn Partridge, Imperial College London,
- Self-management education
The new British Guideline on the Management of Asthma states
that all patients should be offered "written individualised
asthma action plans" as part of their education to manage
their condition. Professor Partridge will ask why, when so
many studies show that these plans are key in reducing deaths
from asthma, does the UK have such a low rate (3%) of people
receiving a personalized plan?
The GPs' guide to wheezes
Dr Mike Thomas, University of Aberdeen, - Diagnosis & Assessment in Primary Care
When a wheezing patient arrives in a GP's surgery, it isn't always easy to tell if the wheeze is asthma or not - there is currently no simple 'gold-standard' diagnostic test. "Asthma-like" symptoms can be found in a child with a virus, an older patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dysfunctional breathing and a variety of rarer conditions. Dr Thomas, a GP and respiratory researcher, will talk about the diagnostic pitfalls in general practice and the importance of making the right diagnosis.
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