Difficult Asthma Liam G Heaney, Andrew Menzies-Gow
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1CLINICAL FOCUS SERIES: Difficult Asthma2
3CLINICAL FOCUS SERIES: Difficult Asthma
Editors Liam G Heaney MD MRCP Professor of Respiratory Medicine School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biological Sciences Queens University Belfast Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK Andrew Menzies-Gow BSc MBBS PhD FRCP Consultant Physician in Respiratory Medicine Royal Brompton Hospital London, England, UK
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Clinical Focus Series
Difficult Asthma / Eds. Liam G Heaney, Andrew Menzies-Gow
First Edition: 2013
9789350902998
Printed at:
7Contributors  
EDITORS
 
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
9Preface
Asthma is common and affects an estimated 300 million people worldwide. The diagnosis is often straightforward, and symptoms respond well to standard doses of inhaled therapy. However, approximately 5–10% of patients with asthma do not respond well and have poor symptomatic control, despite prescription of currently available therapies. These patients are often referred to as having “difficult asthma”. This poor response to conventional therapy is not always due to underlying asthma severity. Systematic multidisciplinary approaches to clinical evaluation have sought to dissect the complexity of this clinical population and demonstrated how targeted intervention can improve outcome. Some patients do have severe refractory disease, where there is a suboptimal response to currently available therapies, and in these cases, novel therapies, including specific monoclonal antibodies against key biological targets, are becoming available.
The purpose of this book is to provide medical students, postgraduate fellows, general practitioners, and specialists a succinct, easy-to-read, well-illustrated, and comprehensive review of difficult asthma. The book brings together the opinion of international experts in the field and provides a pragmatic overview of the clinical problems, giving an insight into the complexity of this population and providing a framework for managing these patients. It covers the etiology, pathogenesis, and management of refractory asthma and novel therapeutic approaches in this group. Importantly, it gives an insight into the patient's perspective of severe asthma and the associated disproportionate use of healthcare resources and major economic burden of poorly controlled asthma.
We hope that this book will be of use not only for pulmonologists and internists but also for practitioners of other specialties, because this clinical problem is often encountered by nonpulmonologists.
Finally, we would like to record our sincere thanks to the group of international physicians and academicians who, despite their busy schedules, provided outstanding educational material for this book.
Liam G Heaney
Andrew Menzies-Gow10
11Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the huge effort from the international experts who have contributed to this book. When approached about the project, all responded with great enthusiasm, reflecting their passion to promote understanding and improve care for patients with difficult-to-control asthma.
Our special gratitude goes to the editorial team of M/s Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd., New Delhi, India, who drove the project forward and was a great assistance throughout.12