Evaluation by self-monitoring and noninvasive measures

Asthma severity may be defined in various ways. Despite common perception, well-controlled asthma is not synonymous with mild asthma and poorly controlled asthma is not synonymous with severe asthma. Symptoms cannot always be used as the only criteria of severity since the individual tolerance to a given degree of airflow limitation is variable. There are three asthma phenotypes which are generally defined as difficult to treat asthma: brittle asthma, systemic glucocorticoid-dependent asthma, and glucocorticoid-resistant asthma. This article reviews the role of self-monitoring and noninvasive measures in the diagnosis and treatment of difficult to control asthma and therapy-resistant asthma. An objective measure of the overall asthma severity is essential in the diagnosis and treatment of difficult to control asthma and therapy-resistant asthma, because the goal of asthma control is based on self-monitoring/noninvasive measures, essentially history and lung function tests. The role of ...