Comprehensive asthma management: guidelines for clinicians.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by reversible airway obstruction and nonspecific airway hyperreactivity. Asthma is managed in steps according to disease symptoms and severity. Treatment goals are to decrease symptoms, improve pulmonary function, and reduce overall morbidity and the associated cost of medical care. Antiasthma drugs are a key component of asthma management that are classified as either long-term-control medications that control symptoms and prevent disease exacerbations, or quick-relief medications that rapidly relieve airway obstruction and acute asthma symptoms. Several new leukotriene (LT) modulators have been developed that promise to improve asthma control, including LT receptor antagonists montelukast and zafirlukast and the 5-lipoxygenase inhibitor zileuton. Each decreases symptoms and the use of rescue medication, and improves pulmonary function in patients with mild intermittent to moderate persistent asthma.