The guidelines for prescribing, testing and management of asthma have been updated by the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) Coordinating Committee, coordinated by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The update is not a complete revision of the prior guidelines but focuses on six topics including inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and long-acting muscarinic antagonists (LAMA).
In the forward, Michelle Cloutier, MD, Chair, Expert Panel Working Group, indicated “there is an ‘absence of many strong recommendations,’ which are those recommendations that clinicians should adhere to almost all the time as standard of care. ‘This is not, however, surprising given the variations in asthma phenotypes and endotypes and in the outcomes used in the studies reviewed to develop the recommendations.’ In addition, James P. Kiley, PhD, Director of the Division of Lung Diseases, NHLBI explained, “From the beginning, the “2020 Focused Updates to the Asthma Management Guidelines” was designed to help primary care providers, specialists, and patients work together to make decisions about asthma care.”