


We report that oral/systemic corticosteroid use is prevalent in asthma management, and the risks of acute and chronic complications increase with the cumulative oral corticosteroid dosage.

This review provides a comprehensive overview of oral/systemic corticosteroid use and associated adverse events for patients with all degrees of asthma severity and exposure duration. Greater oral/systemic corticosteroid exposure was also associated with increased costs and healthcare resource use. Compared with no use, long-term and repeated short-term oral/systemic corticosteroid use were associated with an increased risk of acute and chronic adverse events, even when doses were comparatively low. Long-term oral/systemic corticosteroid use was, in general, less frequent than short-term use. Overall, oral/systemic corticosteroids were commonly used for asthma management and were more frequently used in patients with severe asthma than in those with milder disease.

The included studies were conducted in Europe, North America, and Asia. We identified and reviewed 387 full-text articles, and our review included data from 139 studies. Observational studies, prescription database analyses, economic analyses, and surveys on oral/systemic corticosteroid use in children (>5 yr old), adolescents (12–17 yr old), and adults with asthma were included. We searched MEDLINE and Embase databases to identify English-language articles published in 2010–2017, using search terms for asthma with keywords for oral corticosteroids and systemic corticosteroids. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the real-world extent and burden of systemic corticosteroid use in asthma. Systemic corticosteroid use to manage uncontrolled asthma and its associated healthcare burden may account for important health-related adverse effects.
