LAUSR

Background: Current guidelines recommend the use of ICS/LABA to control moderate to severe asthma. Poor response to ICS/LABA is still observed in a sizeable proportion of patients. Objectives: Among asthma patients who newly initiated medium (MED) or high dose (HD) ICS/LABA treatment, to examine the percentage of patients who remain uncontrolled in one year after treatment initiation and describe demographic and clinical characteristics of uncontrolled patients, versus controlled ones. Methods: We analysed the eletronic medical records data from an integrated delivery network in the US on asthma patients who newly initiated a MED or HD ICS/LABA between 2009 and 2013. The index date was the treatment initiation date. All patients were followed up for 12 months post index. A patient was identified as uncontrolled if he/she had >=1 exacerbation (s) leading to outpatient visit and requiring OCS bursts, ER visit or hospitalization, or had a treatment step-up. Results: In the MED ICS/LABA cohort of 24,460 patients and HD ICS/LABA cohort of 19,165, 31.5% and 34.7 % patients failed to achieve disease control in the 1st year after treatment initiation respectively. A higher percentage of uncontrolled patients were female (p Conclusion: A significant percentage of patients on MED ~ HD ICS/LABA were uncontrolled, highlighting the needs for better asthma management.