Talk:Asthma

GA Reassessment

Asthma

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Kept. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:23, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

This top-importance Medicine article was listed in 2013, and has not been kept up-to-date. Opening the GAR in the hope of finding someone who would like to give the article a once-over

• In contrast to WP:MEDDATE, the article's median source year is 2011
• The economics section is US-focussed, and ends in 2010
• The 2007 NICE guidelines are cited, even though the 2024 guidelines are out
• The genetic evidence stops in 2005(!). Surely, more is known now about which genes contribute to asthma risk. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:13, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

  I’m willing to take this on if I can have some time to wrap up my studies and the Coeliac disease article (studies wrap up in 2 weeks and i’m hoping the CD article will wrap up around them as well) IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 05:05, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

  Okay so this seems to be quite a big project. This is not something I will reasonably be able to do in under a month but I'm going to chip away at it. I'm going to start by removing some information that is not mentioned in recent sources and go from there. Seeing as this is a huge article I don't think it needs tons of info added moreso just some reshuffling of existing info and updating. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 18:52, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  A lot of progress has been made but I am very busy lately. Thank you for our patience so far and I would appreciate some more time to finish up the last bits that need to be wrapped up. Just wanted to clarify that I have not given up on this article. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 16:49, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Guideline updates

• GINA guidelines: The scope of the 2011 and 2025 GINA guidelines closely match. In most cases, citations to the 2011 guideline can be replaced with citations to the 2025 guideline, provided that the accompanying text is updated to reflect current recommendations.
  • GINA_2011: "Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention" (PDF). Global Initiative for Asthma. 2011. Archived Reports.
  • GINA_2025: "Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention" (PDF). Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). 2025.

• NICE / SIGN guidelines: The scopes of SIGN 101 and SIGN 158 closely match, whereas NICE NG245 has a narrower focus. As a result, citations to SIGN 101 can generally be replaced with SIGN 158, but not with NG245.
  • SIGN 101: "British Guideline on the Management of Asthma" (PDF). British Thoracic Society. 2012 [2008]. SIGN 101. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 19, 2008. Retrieved August 4, 2008.
  • SIGN 158: British Guideline on the Management of Asthma. British Thoracic Society. July 2019. ISBN 978-1-909103-70-2. SIGN 158.
  • NG245: British Thoracic Society; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (November 2024). "Asthma: diagnosis, monitoring and chronic asthma management". NICE guideline NG245. NICE.

• NHLBI guidelines: The scope of the 2020 NHLBI focused update is substantially narrower than that of the 2007 NHLBI/NAEPP guidelines (EPR-3). The 2007 guideline therefore remains generally valid except where its recommendations have been superseded by the 2020 focused update. Consequently, most citations to the 2007 guideline cannot be replaced by the 2020 update.
  • NHLBI_2007: Expert Panel (2007). Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Asthma. National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (Report). National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Report 3 (EPR-3).
  • NHLBI_2020: National Asthma Education and Prevention Program Coordinating Committee. "Asthma management guidelines: Focused updates 2020". National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Boghog (talk) 10:44, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Update

@Femke, IntentionallyDense, and Boghog: What is the status of this GAR? Z1720 (talk) 17:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

•  Done genetic evidence section completely rewritten and supported with recent MEDRS compliant sources
•  Done GINA_2011 → GINA_2025
•  Done SIGN 101 → SIGN 158
•  Not done NHLBI_2007 → NHLBI_2020 (not possible since scope of NHLBI_2020 is much narrower than NHLBI_2007)
• Boghog (talk) 20:08, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

It's being worked on, still left to do are the following:

• Rework lead. Ideally no citations as especially with the rp template, they clutter things
• Update associated conditions. Includes removing exact percentages as they aren't that helpful to readers IMO and they get outdated easily
• Classification. Trim the second para and the asthma exacerbation subheading (overly technical at times) Condense the 3 subtypes remaining into above paragraphs. Add a bit more info on symptom control and severity
• Causes. Currently working on this in a sandbox User:IntentionallyDense/Asthma but basically just condense info and update it
• Pathophysiology. Update it and possibly simplify it a bit
• Diagnosis. Update and condense
• Update prognosis and epidemiology
• Combine the economy and health disparities into a society and culture section
• History needs a bit of tidying.

This is not an easy or quick job, I'm currently in school and working so my time is limited but as with the coeliac disease page, I will get it done, I just need some time. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 21:00, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Cancerning {{rp}}, these will be replaced later this year with Sub-referencing which is a much cleaner solution. Harvard-style referencing fragments citation information between inline notes and the reference list, requiring readers to jump between sections to understand precisely what part of a source supports a claim. Sub-referencing keeps page and chapter details directly beneath the full citation, allowing readers to verify sources immediately and with less effort. Boghog (talk) 09:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I see work in going quite well. I do notice quite a few quite technical bits being introduced however. For instance, the lead uses the terms bronchioles and alveoli, without explaining them. Not sure if it's possible to simplify the treatment section of the lead, but it comes across as more technical than our typical reader might need. In the genetics section, loci is not explained, atopic isn't defined (is it a necessary word?). In general the genetic correlation paragraph is tough to understand. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 12:59, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

• @Femke, IntentionallyDense, and Boghog: Can we get an update on this? I see that it has been several weeks since the article was significantly edited. Z1720 (talk) 02:07, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
  • There was a update a few days back: more work is planned :). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:27, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

  scroll up, i made an update a couple days ago. in the future i’ll make updates towards the bottom of the page so its easier for you to see them when checking GAR that have been open for awhile. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 06:01, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

• @Femke, IntentionallyDense, and Boghog: Just checking in again: it has been over a month since the last edit to this GAR and only minimal edits to the article. What else needs to be done for this article to retain its GA status? Z1720 (talk) 03:16, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  There have been some edits since I made my comment about MTAU, but more work needs to be done. I'll edit the article directly while we wait for ID to return to it, to avoid it stalling completely. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:26, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

  The diagnosis, outlook, and epidemiology section still need to be updated. Epidemiology is fairly straightforward but the diagnosis is a tough one. All of the major guidelines differ on the diagnostic process without much elaboration on why. I'm currently working on synthesizing these guidelines into one coherent section. Currently I just have all of the information down and over the next few weeks I should be able to start making progress towards rewriting. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 19:44, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Update

• I am almost finished with this page. The society and outcome section are the only sections left to be redone (they also overlap quite a bit). Every other section has been updated to reflect most recent guidelines. There are some finishing touches to be done with prose, format and possibly adding in some more images however I would say the article is currently at a place where it is understandable, broad, and reasonably well written. June 25th I take off for three weeks in Brazil where I won't have my laptop and will have limited access to wifi. I may not get to finish this article before I take off so I would ask that when re-evaluating this article you consider that I do promise to fulfill my commitments here, it just may not be till mid-July. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 05:07, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

• User:IntentionallyDense: I'm going to go ahead and AGF that you will finish the last few sections when you have the time, and close this GAR as Keep just to clear it off the books. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:23, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Prevalence in women vs men

The article currently says "in adults asthma is more prevalent in females" and cites the 2025 GINA strategy report for this. In this document, I searched for "women", " men", "men ", "male", "female", "prevalen", "sex", "gender". With regard to adults, I could only find very few statements, none of them supporting what the article writes. I suspect this one on page 23 may have been misinterpreted:

Adult-onset (late-onset) asthma: Some adults, particularly women, present with asthma for the first time in adulthood

Higher adult-onset does not mean higher prevalence among the adult population: more boys than girls have asthma, and whereas their remission rate as they grow older is higher than in girls, it is not neccessarily high enough for the ratio to flip.

Likewise, while "Female sex" is listed as among "Other factors associated with increased likelihood of need for admission", this by itself cannot support a statement about prevalence (even of severe asthma).

The Wikipedia article also says, further down: "Unlike childhood asthma, which is more prevalent in males, in adults asthma is more prevalent in females." From the context, it looks like it may have been meant as a contrasting of childhood-onset asthma versus adult-onset asthma. In any case, the source this time is a 2023 reference work entry on Asthma in Airway Diseases (closed-access). If someone with access could please check it – perhaps a difference in adult prevalence has been established after all. ~2026-20336-91 (talk) 10:24, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

The statement is true according by the GBD study (see https://bmjopenrespres.bmj.com/content/bmjresp/12/1/e003144.full.pdf, figure 3). Overall burden (all ages) is higher in women as well, which surprised me. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 17:00, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

@Boghog: it seems these errors were introduced in this edit by you in December. Would you be willing to go over these edits and check for more mistakes? I've also had to correct the bit around prevalence, as I could find nothing about the gender ratio in the source and it contradicted the GBD study, which shows a more moderate ratio. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Another ping @Boghog in case you missed the previous one. Most cites you added there point to page 24, which didn't have that much information on.. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:52, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

ICS is not explained

Inhaled Corticosteroids are abbreviated to ICS. This article uses the ICS abbreviation only. it needs the full term added ~2026-25286-03 (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

In the "Medications" subsection of the "Management" section, the abbreviation is expanded at first use (para 3), and then used as an abbreviation thereafter, and that all seems entirely satisfactory and clear to the reader. That leaves two earlier uses of the abbreviation in the "Exacerbations" subsection of the "Causes" section, and there I agree it would be helpful to expand it in both cases. I will make that change. GrindtXX (talk) 20:46, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

Inhaler Technique Section

This article is very descriptive from a medical and scientific standpoint. However, I find that for those that are looking to learn about and understand asthma in a practical sense, there can be some improvements. A great place to start is discussing proper technique when using an inhaler. It might be fairly intuitive for most people, however I believe that including a section on proper technique may be very beneficial to those that are newly diagnosed with asthma.

It could look something like this:

Proper inhaler technique is important for effective asthma treatment. For metered-dose inhalers (MDIs), recommended technique generally includes shaking the inhaler, exhaling before use, beginning a slow inhalation while actuating the device, continuing a slow deep breath, and holding the breath for several seconds afterward to improve medication deposition in the lungs. Spacer devices may improve medication delivery and reduce coordination difficulties. Incorrect inhaler use is common; frequent errors include poor coordination between inhalation and actuation, inhaling too rapidly or too slowly, and failure to hold the breath after inhalation. Dry powder inhalers (DPIs) require a different technique, typically involving a rapid deep inhalation rather than the slower inhalation used with MDIs.

Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/caring/index.html, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012369216475719 ~2026-28452-46 (talk) 03:21, 12 May 2026 (UTC)