In a joint statement, the German Society for Pneumology and Respiratory Medicine (DGP), the Society for Pediatric Pneumology (GPP), and the Society for Pediatric Allergology and Environmental Medicine (GPA) advise continuing therapy with inhalable steroids (ICS) unchanged in patients with asthma.
As the lung experts explain, there are currently more and more voices questioning the therapy with ICS – the core element of asthma therapy – against the background of the current coronavirus epidemic. For example, in his March 13, 2020 podcast, Professor Christian Drosten, MD, Institute of Virology, Charité Berlin, Germany, pointed out that asthma patients should talk to their doctor about replacing a cortisone-based asthma medication with one that is less likely to attack the immune system. This statement unsettles patients and practitioners, experts said.
The German asthma specialists recommend not to change or even stop an adequate and individually adjusted antiasthmatic inhalation therapy (especially also an ICS therapy) in children and adults with asthma for this reason. The risk that this will cause a threatening worsening of asthma and necessitate (otherwise unnecessary) visits to the doctor or hospital – including possible contact with COVID-19 patients – is much more threatening to the individual asthma patient than a possible, although unproven, risk of promoting infection with the coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2). Successful inhalation therapy in patients with asthma should therefore be continued unchanged, even and especially during the current coronavirus pandemic.
All other hygiene and precautionary measures recommended by the Robert Koch Institute, including avoidance of social contact, should of course also be followed by patients with asthma.
The Swiss Society of Pneumology (SGP) made it clear in its own statement that it shares the same point of view: it advises patients to continue all medications and therapies as prescribed by their treating physician. Accordingly, inhaled steroids are not considered immunosuppressive therapy, and immunomodulatory or immunosuppressive therapy should not be stopped.
Source: DGP and SGP
InFo PNEUMOLOGY & ALLERGOLOGY 2020; 2(1): 4 (published 3/24/20, ahead of print).
