State of the art: therapeutic controversies in severe acute asthma

This is a transcript of the 1999 SAEM State-of-the-Art session on "Therapeutic Controversies in Severe Acute Asthma," presented at the 1999 SAEM annual meeting in Boston. The aim of this session was to address some of the current controversies in the management of acute asthma exacerbations, a major issue in emergency medicine. Despite many recent advances in asthma management, morbidity and mortality remain high. While many of us have strong feelings on how asthma patients should be treated, many of our assertions are not based on good science, and there are numerous areas of controversy. This discussion focuses on the controversy over beta agonist treatment for acute asthma, the physiology of corticosteroids in asthma, and the emergency use of leukotriene-modifying agents.