On 28 January 2015 the BBC published a report called "Asthma diagnosis 'may be wrong' in one million UK adults". For the full report please visit the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30997397
At the NIHR Leicester Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit (BRU), we are excited that the BBC has brought incorrect diagnoses, underdiagnoses, and under-treatment of asthma into the public eye. Our research supported this observation in our ground breaking analysis of asthma heterogeneity (Haldar et al AJRCCM 2008;178:218-224, cited more than 400 times) which demonstrated that about 30% of patients on GP asthma lists did not have current evidence of asthma. However asthma can flare up again even if it has been in remission for a considerable period of time and asthma may appear to have gone away but is just being kept in very good control by the steroid inhalers so it is important that patients who have a diagnosis of asthma do not stop their treatment unless advised by their doctor or asthma nurse. Over the last decade the Leicester Respiratory BRU has made a number of paradigm shifting observations which have had a significant impact on our understanding of the causes and optimal management of this disease. We have particularly focussed on exploring the implications of disease heterogeneity, with the overall aim of matching the therapy to the patient, consistent with the idea of stratified or personalised medicine.
