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Novelties in the Treatment of Asthma Abstract. For general practitioners there have been important novelties in the treatment of asthma due to recent modifications of the international guidelines from Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). Step 1 no longer recommends the use of short-acting β2-agonists (SABA) without concomitant inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) as a controller because of the lack of efficacy and for safety reasons. Instead, low dose ICS-formoterol as needed is recommended. GINA step 5 recommends targeted biologic therapies like interleukin antibodies in patients with severe uncontrolled asthma. Asthma patients presenting simultaneously with symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) should receive treatment containing ICS. Independent of the current corona pandemic, GINA recommendations stay in place. Recent data on prescriptions of SABA and oral corticosteroids (OCS) in Switzerland indicate that they still play an important role in asthma management and that GINA recommendations have not yet been sufficiently implemented into practice.

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