Pulmonary pharmacology & therapeutics
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Pulm Pharmacol Ther · Oct 2020
Using prednisolone and cortisol assays to assess adherence in oral corticosteroid dependant asthma: An analysis of test-retest repeatability.
Non-adherence is an important issue within severe asthma. Prednisolone and cortisol assays have been proposed as an inexpensive, objective measure of adherence for oral corticosteroid (OCS)-dependent asthmatics, however, little is known about the reliability of these tests. ⋯ Assessing adherence to maintenance OCS using a simple rule based on prednisolone and cortisol assays is highly reliable and correlated with blood eosinophil changes. Clinicians should have confidence in the results of this rule.