[Use of prophylactic medication in persistent asthma]

OBJECTIVE: To assess the proportion of patients with moderate or severe persistent asthma who are on prophylactic therapy when first evaluated at a specialized outpatient center. METHODS: Descriptive study of 306 patients with persistent asthma and ages ranging from four to fifteen years old, seen from June/1995 to August/1998, at the Respiratory and Allergic Diseases section of the Child and Adolescent Institute, an outpatient reference center located in the town of Juiz de Fora (MG), Brazil. Data from the Institute's registry, chiefly those related to the use of prophylactic medications, such as inhaled steroids, sodium chromoglycate, nedocromil sodium, sustained-release theophylline, long acting inhaled beta2-agonist and ketotifen were used to fill in a standardized protocol. RESULTS: Of the 306 patients, 87.3% had persistent moderate and 12.7% had persistent severe asthma. Only 14.4% were on some kind of controller medication. When only the use of inhaled antiinflammatory drugs (sodium cromolyn, nedocromil sodium and steroids) was considered, this proportion decreased to 4.6%. There was not statistical significance (p<0.05) between the use or not of prophylactic regimens in relation to gender, weight, height, asthma severity, hospital admissions, age of onset, age when first evaluated at the outpatient center and household smoking. CONCLUSIONS: The rate of utilization of prophylactic regimens in this population of persistent asthmatic patients was unsatisfactory, a finding particularly stressed by the low rate of subjects on inhaled antiinflammatory drugs. It is necessary to emphasize such measures to face the magnitude that asthma represents in our country.