Asthmatics not getting the right medicines

COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 20 (UPI) -- More than 10 years after U.S. guidelines were issued for asthma treatment, some patients still don't receive the inhalers recommended, a study says.

Ohio State University researchers examined asthma prescribing trends covering a seven-year period and found physicians' prescribing practices based on expert recommendations improved from 1998 to 2002, but began to decline after 2003.

Treatment disparities based on age and race were also evident. The elderly and minorities tended to be less likely to be prescribed the long-acting controller medications called for in the guidelines, the study said.

"Patients also were still being prescribed short-term symptom relief medications that are so outdated, they hardly even deserve to be prescribed anymore," senior study author Rajesh Balkrishnan said in a statement. "The guidelines stress that patients who are asthmatic need to be on some type of controller medications. Just using symptomatic relief medications is not enough."

Putting out these guidelines may not be enough, and physicians may need to be educated about the importance of properly medicating asthma patients, while patients need to be educated about the treatment alternatives available to them, Balkrishnan said.

The findings are published in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.