Top ten opinion pieces of 2020 Our news and views team has worked hard to keep you in the loop during a year full of twists and turns. And there’s been no shortage of COVID-19 developments for our opinion leaders to analyse, or pharmacy predictions to ponder.…
Personalised medicine approach could benefit people with asthma Prescribing asthma treatment based on genetic differences could improve outcomes, results presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress have suggested.…
Novel once-daily fixed-dose ICS–LABA improves lung function over ICS monotherapy, research finds A once-daily fixed-dose combination of inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting β2-adrenoceptor agonist significantly improved lung function over inhaled corticosteroids alone, a phase III study has concluded.…
Once-daily ICS-LABA-LAMA superior to ICS-LABA in improving lung function, research suggests A study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine indicates that ICS-LABA-LAMA once daily is better than ICS-LABA in improving lung function.…
Reducing asthma medication does not worsen outcomes but could save money, study suggests Stepping down asthma medication does not adversely affect patient outcomes and could save millions of pounds in medicines costs, a study in PLoS Medicine has found.…
Inhaler recycling scheme that cut carbon emissions equivalent to more than 8,500 cars is scrapped A scheme to recycle respiratory inhalers, which has cut carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to taking around 8,600 cars off UK roads, is ending.…
Blue, brown and now green The ‘NHS long-term plan’ has called for a shift towards inhalers with a lower carbon footprint.…
Salbutamol inhaler prescribing jumped 60% at start of COVID-19 pandemic The number of some inhalers prescribed by GPs in England increased by 63% between February 2020 and March 2020, according to data analysed by The Pharmaceutical Journal.…
Why we must urgently rethink prescribing short-acting bronchodilators for asthma Guidelines from the Global Initiative for Asthma present a radical overhaul of the way we manage asthma; but our current approach isn’t working, and nothing will change if it is not challenged.…
Asthma exacerbations during pregnancy linked to birth complications Women with asthma who experience exacerbations during pregnancy are more likely to have birth complications than women with well-controlled asthma, a study published in the European Respiratory Journal has suggested.…