Epistle

Worldwide, asthma is the most common long-term respiratory condition of childhood. Angela Tang and colleagues’ article on maintenance and reliver therapy (MART) for the management of asthma provides evidence-based guidance for incorporating inhaled corticosteroid/formoterol either as an anti- inflammatory reliever (AIR) or as MART for asthma management in children and young person (CYP) over 5 years age ( see page 198 ). The article is a timely read, as it comes on the heels of recently published joint guidelines on asthma by the British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).1 The authors also briefly discuss environmental consequences of asthma treatment and the additional advantages with use of dry powdered inhalers (DPI) in contrast to metered dose inhalers (MDI).