Page 148 - Comprehensive treatment of patients with glucocorticoid-dependent severe asthma

Chapter 9
Table 1. Baseline characteristics of patients (n=43)
Patient characteristics
Age – yr, Mean (SD)
Male sex – no.(% total no.) Body-mass index, Mean (SD) Age of asthma onset – yr
Median (25th-75th percentile) Duration of daily OCS use – months
Median (25th-75th percentile) Dose of prednisone – mg/ day
Median (25th-75th percentile) Dose of ICS – mg/ daya
Median (25th-75th percentile) Never smokers – no.(% total no) Pre-bronchodilator FEV1
Liters, Mean (SD)
% Predicted, Mean (SD) Change in FEV1 after β2 (%) Exhaled Nitric Oxide- ppb
Median (25th-75th percentile) ACQ score b, Mean (SD)
50.1 (11.2) 19 (44) 27.9 (18.6)
33.0 (5.7-42.0)
48 (12-162)
10 (5-15)
1250 (750-1500) 27 (62.8)
2.48 (1.02) 75.4 (23.7) 7.2 (1.3-13.5)
42 (23-70)
2.2 (1.1)
Footnote table 1: OCS denotes oral corticosteroids, FEV1 denotes forced expiratory volume in the first second, ppb denotes parts per billion. a The doses of all inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) were converted to the equivalent dose of fluticasone. b The Asthma Control Questionnaire score ranges from 0 to 6, with higher scores indicating worse asthma control.
Outcome adherence
The median (25th-75th percentile) adherence with the internet strategy was 87.8 (78.9 to 95)% (Table 2). Nineteen (44 %) of the patients had adherence rates higher than 90% and nine (20%) below 70%. There was no significant difference in scores of adherence between the three study periods.
Reliability of data
The median (25th-75th percentile) reliability was 77.8 (51.6 to 88.3)% and 7.3 (0 to 17.0)% of the FeNO values were self-invented (table 2). There was a time trend effect in the reliability with a small improvement in the scores from the first period of the study (median (25th-75th percentile) 92 (70 to 95)%) to the second period of study (median (25th-75th percentile) 100 (90 to 100)%), p <0.01. No further improvement was observed after the second period.
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