Total rather than good asthma control seen best

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Total control of asthma, in accordance with medical guidelines, results in the best quality of life, a new report indicates. It shows that when asthma is totally controlled rather than simply well controlled, there's a tangible improvement in quality of life.

As reported in the European Respiratory Journal, Dr. E. D. Bateman, from the University of Capetown in South Africa, and colleagues administered the Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) to 1994 patients participating in a study comparing the efficacy of two asthma treatments.

The subjects were divided into three groups based on the degree of asthma control they achieved during the yearlong study: totally controlled, well controlled, or not well-controlled.

All three groups experienced improvements in quality of life during the study period. However, by the end of the study, patients with totally controlled asthma had significantly higher AQLQ scores than did those with well-controlled disease, who, in turn, had higher scores than those with not well-controlled asthma.

"These results confirm that near-normal health-related quality of life can be achieved when treatment aims for total control of asthma," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: European Respiratory Journal, January 2007.