Madurai: A special clinic for identifying and treating asthma has been opened at Apollo multispecialty hospital in Madurai, offering much hope to patients suffering from the prolonged illness. Apollo pulmonologist Dr S Harikrishnan said that the main objective of the clinic named “Difficult to treat Asthma” was to find the core cause and treat it accordingly. Asthma is often treated with inhaler therapy which must be individualized based on the pulmonary functioning and patients’ ability to use the device. Such detailed treatment will be provided at the clinic. The disease could be controlled by inhaling corticosteroids and beta agonists, but in some patients it was difficult to control wheezing in spite of high dose of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and long-acting beta agonists (LABA).
Therefore, the clinic will re-evaluate individuals affected by asthma to identify asthma other than allergen variant and rule out other possible diagnosis. Pulmonologist Dr Bharathi Babu said, “People are still not aware of chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and mistake it for asthma. We have seen cases where symptoms of heart diseases and lung cancer were mistaken for asthma and given wrong treatment.”
The clinic will mostly be a consultation centre with outpatient and inpatient facilities and will be open from 9 am to 6 pm on weekdays.