Use of symptoms scores, spirometry, and other pulmonary function testing for asthma monitoring

Asthma is a global problem affecting millions of people all over the world. Monitoring of asthma both in children and in adulthood is an indispensable tool for the optimal disease management and for the maintenance of clinical stability. To date, several resources are available to assess the asthma control, first is the monitoring of symptoms, both through periodic follow-up visits and through specific quality of life measures addressed to the patient in first person or to parents. Clinical monitoring is not always sufficient to predict the risk of future exacerbations, which is why further instrumental examinations are available including lung function tests, the assessment of bronchial hyper-reactivity and bronchial inflammation. All these tools may help in quantifying the future risk for each patient and therefore they potentially may change the natural history of asthmatic disease. The monitoring of asthma in children as in adults is certainly linked by many aspects, however the asthmatic child is a future asthmatic adult and it is precisely during childhood and adolescence that we should implement all the efforts and strategies to prevent the progression of the disease and the subsequent impairment of lung function. For these reasons, asthma monitoring plays a crucial role and must be particularly close and careful. In this paper, we evaluate several tools currently available for asthma monitoring, focusing on current recommendations emerging from various guidelines and especially on the differences between the monitoring in pediatric age and adulthood.