Third of adults diagnosed with asthma DON’T actually have it
A THIRD of adults diagnosed with asthma may not have the condition, research suggests.
Experts believe many people are misdiagnosed in the first place, while others recover to the extent the asthma is no longer active.
They say doctors too often confirm to patients that they have the condition without carrying out proper tests.
Lead author Professor Shawn Aaron, of Ottawa University, said: ‘Doctors wouldn’t diagnose diabetes without checking blood sugar levels, or a broken bone without ordering an X-ray.
‘But for some reason many doctors are not ordering the spirometry tests [which measure how much air is expelled in one forced breath] that can definitely diagnose asthma.’
The Canadian researchers carried out breathing tests on 613 patients who had been diagnosed with asthma in the past five years. They found 33 per cent showed no sign of asthma. Yet eight in ten of these had been taking medication for the condition – 35 per cent of them every day.
More than 90 per cent of the patients with no asthma were able to stop their medication, and remained safely off treatment for a year under monitoring, the scientists said.
The study echoes research which suggests asthma is hugely overdiagnosed in the UK – where about 5.4million people are receiving treatment for it, one in 12 adults and one in 11 children.
NHS watchdog Nice warned in 2015 that around one third of ‘asthmatic’ adults showed no clinical signs and had probably been misdiagnosed.
And last year leading experts warned inhalers were being dished out unnecessarily like ‘fashion accessories’ in the NHS, particularly among children.
They said doctors were taking the slightest wheeze to be a sign of asthma. Professor Andrew Bush of the Royal Brompton Hospital in London and Dr Louise Fleming of Imperial College London wrote in a journal article last year: ‘The diagnosis of asthma has been trivialised and inhalers dispensed for no
‘Inhalers a fashion accessory’
good reason, and have become almost a fashion accessory.
‘The result is: the fact that asthma is a killing disease if [it is] not correctly managed is overlooked.’
The latest study, published in the Jama medical journal, found doctors often did not order the tests needed to confirm asthma. Instead they based the diagnosis solely on the patient’s account of their symptoms and their own observations.
Professor Aaron said: ‘It’s impossible to say how many of these patients were originally misdiagnosed with asthma, and how many have asthma that is no longer active…they were all able to stop taking medication that they didn’t need – medication that is expensive and can have side effects.’
When the patients that were found not to have asthma were rediagnosed, most had minor conditions such as allergies or heartburn, and 28 per cent had nothing wrong with them at all.
Two per cent had serious conditions, including pulmonary hypertension and heart disease, which had been mistaken for asthma. Professor Aaron added: ‘It wasn’t a surprise to most patients…Some knew all along that their puffer wasn’t working, while others were concerned that they might have something more serious.’
Dr Andy Whittamore of the charity Asthma UK said the research ‘does not address the equally worrying problem of underdiagnosis and poor control of asthma in the wider population’.
But he added: ‘Nevertheless, the study highlights some important aspects of good asthma management and care, such as the need for people with asthma to receive objective measurements such as spirometry to confirm their diagnosis along with regular reviews with their GP or nurse.’