![\"Revised](\"https:\/\/d1v1e13ebw3o15.cloudfront.net\/data\/90332\/pool_and_spa_master\/..jpg\" "\\"Revised")
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The revised 2025 edition of the National Asthma Council\u2019s (NAC<\/a>) Australian Asthma Handbook<\/a> is now available. Providing the national guidelines for asthma management in Australia and leading the provision of evidence-based, practical advice for asthma management in primary care, the revised 2025 edition also includes changes for improved diagnosis and management of asthma in infants and children.<\/p>\n Included in the 2025 revised edition are recommendations that encourage health professionals to stop prescribing or advising treatment with as-needed short-acting beta2 agonists (SABA) alone to manage asthma in adults and adolescents. The revised NAC Australian Asthma Handbook now recommends anti-inflammatory reliever (AIR)-only therapy and maintenance-and-reliever therapy (MART) for adults and adolescents (aged over 12).<\/p>\n \u201cThe updated NAC Australian Asthma Handbook guidelines released today state that all adults and adolescents with asthma need ICS as part of their treatment to reduce inflammation and prevent exacerbations,\u201d said Clinical Associate Professor Debbie Rigby, pharmacist and Clinical Executive Lead, NAC. \u201cSABA-only treatment is associated with a higher risk of severe asthma exacerbations compared with AIR-only or with maintenance treatment with a low dose of ICS.<\/p>\n \u201cFor patients not using maintenance ICS-containing inhalers, low-dose budesonide-formoterol taken as needed markedly reduces the risk of severe exacerbations requiring oral corticosteroids, compared with SABA taken as needed,\u201d Rigby added.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, launched the updated guidelines on 16 September, saying: “The updated Australian Asthma Handbook will support primary health professionals to better diagnose, treat and manage their patients with the condition.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the latest part of a national push to improve how asthma and related respiratory conditions are managed, helping those living with asthma to breathe easier and live well,\u201d Butler added.<\/p>\n Extensive research and review of national and international evidence led by a multidisciplinary network of expert primary care and specialist contributors on the NAC\u2019s Guidelines Committee preceded the release of the revised edition.<\/p>\n According to NAC Guidelines Committee Chair Professor Nick Zwar, that health professionals prescribe anti-inflammatory treatment from day one when it comes to asthma in adults and adolescents is the critical take-home message.<\/p>\n \u201cThe common approach was starting patients with mild asthma on SABA as needed; however, this did not treat the underlying inflammation,\u201d Zwar said. \u201cStarting patients on the new recommendation for low-dose budesonide-formoterol as needed offers a more evidence-based approach to asthma management and reflects the biology of the condition.<\/p>\n \u201cPatients sometimes initially think that an anti-inflammatory reliever doesn\u2019t work as well as their SABA puffer, and we need to help them understand that it is working \u2014\u00a0the quick action of the long-acting beta-agonist gives relief from symptoms, and also, they are getting an anti-inflammatory effect from the low-dose corticosteroid.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new recommendations give a patient just as good a response and treatment effect in terms of reducing the risk of having future exacerbations and needing to use oral prednisolone and they are very similar in terms of day to day symptom control.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/NAC-copyright-National-Asthma-Council-health-professional-1.jpg\")
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