Peter G. Gibson

TL;DR: It is reasonable to expect that in most patients with asthma, control of the disease can and should be achieved and maintained, and the Global Initiative for Asthma recommends a change in approach to asthma management, with asthma control, rather than asthma severity, being the focus of treatment decisions.

TL;DR: Recommendations and guidelines on the evaluation and treatment of severe asthma in children and adults and coordinated research efforts for improved phenotyping will provide safe and effective biomarker-driven approaches to severe asthma therapy are provided.

TL;DR: New definitions for asthma control, severity, and exacerbations are developed, based on current treatment principles and clinical and research relevance, to provide a basis for a multicomponent assessment of asthma by clinicians, researchers, and other relevant groups in the design, conduct, and evaluation of clinical trials, and in clinical practice.

TL;DR: Education in asthma self-management which involves self-monitoring by either peak expiratory flow or symptoms, coupled with regular medical review and a written action plan improves health outcomes for adults with asthma.

TL;DR: Induced sputum is capable of detecting differences in cell counts between normal and asthmatic subjects and merits further development as a potential means of assessing airway inflammation in asthma.