Genetic predispositions, impact of the environment, allergy: asthma is a chronic disease caused by a combination of factors. Update on this pathology which would affect 4 million people in France with Professor Camille Taillé, pulmonologist at Bichat hospital.
- Asthma affects 4 million people in France
- The disease has been developing strongly for 20 years
- Asthmatics are not a population at risk for Covid-19
“A real epidemic for 20 years”. It is with these strong and worrying terms that Professor Camille Taillé, pulmonologist at Bichat Hospital, describes the very strong increase in cases of asthma observed in recent years. This development is all the more worrying since we do not know today why a patient becomes asthmatic, which can occur at any age. “Genetic factors are undeniable, the environment and pollution play a role, but this disease is due to a combination of factors, explains Camille Taillé. And if asthma in children is very often associated with allergy, 30 to 50% of adult asthmatics are not allergic.
The need for background treatment
It is estimated that France currently has around 4 million asthmatics and the disease is the cause of a thousand deaths each year. So many patients who must be followed and treated. “We know how to control asthma but not cure it!”, recalls the pulmonologist who warns about the remissions often observed in asthmatic children when they reach the age of adolescence: “their asthma can become asymptomatic but the disease most often reappears in adulthood.
The characteristics of this pathology for which we can neither act nor on the causes nor count on a cure therefore impose a permanent care. “Any asthmatic must have a background treatment based on anti-inflammatories and a rescue treatment in the form of a bronchodilator when an attack occurs”, insists Camille Taillé who adds that one should never hesitate when an attack occurs when there is no treatment at hand to “call 15 which has specific procedures for the management of asthmatics”.
Asthmatics are not a population at risk for Covid-19
On the other hand, and contrary to what some thought at the start of the coronavirus crisis, asthmatics are not a population at risk from Covid-19. “These patients are very susceptible to winter respiratory infections, which suggested that they could be particularly at risk from this epidemic, but all the data show that they are not more likely than others to be infected and that, if “they are infected, they do not develop more severe forms either than non-asthmatic patients”, confirms Camille Taillé who also underlines, again to deny information formulated about Covid-19, that the use of corticosteroids sometimes presented as dangerous but on which the basic treatment of asthma is based must absolutely be maintained.
The good news for asthmatics who suffer from a severe form – we speak of severe asthma when patients who present the classic symptoms of asthma have resisted the usual treatments administered for at least a year – is the arrival of new drugs by injection. And for all “normal” asthmatics, the management also knows some changes with treatments administered sometimes discontinuously, which alleviates the daily constraint of compliance.
Find below the program “Questions aux Experts” on the theme “Living with asthma” in which Pr Camille Taillé answers questions from Why Doctor internet users:
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