Inhaler Dose Counters Reduce Visits to Emergency Department
Inhaler Dose Counters Reduce Visits to ED
Dose counters on rescue inhalers reduced emergency department visits, a real-world observational study showed.
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Adjusted incidence of emergency encounters for respiratory reasons was 45% lower among patients with an albuterol inhaler that had an integrated dose counter compared with those with no dose counter on their inhaler (rate 0.4% versus 0.9%, P<0.001), reported Anna Rigazio, MSc, a statistician at Research in Real Life, a clinical database and research organization based in Cambridge, England.
Severe exacerbations were equally common in the two groups, though, suggesting that fewer trips to the hospital stemmed from cutting down on preventable emergencies, said Rigazio, who presented the results here at the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology meeting.
"If you use your inhaler and it's empty, of course it doesn't help you to treat the exacerbation, and therefore patients run to emergency department visits," she summed up in an interview with MedPage Today.
