Question about asthma severity categorization

[sliceofbread136]

What I was taught originally is that you have your original designation of intermittent, mild, mod or severe persistent and that as you step up or step down therapy this original designation does not change. For example I would say “This is a child with mild persistent asthma on symbicort 80-4.5 2 puffs bid etc etc”. My clinic attending today did not agree with that method and was adamant that as the controller is titrated up or down the designation of severity changes.

I know this is obviously semantics, but I’ve seen it done both ways and was curious if there is actually a right way.

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[FrkyBgStok]

The further I get into medicine, the more I realize that there is never actually a right way. Even on the stuff we can all agree on.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

It probably doesn’t matter, but the symptoms determine the category, not the response to medication. But we basically aren’t that good at understanding diseases anyway. Case in point:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1814917