Second Drug Safety Update - April 2025
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has published a second Drug Safety Update for April 2025.
This update reminds healthcare professionals and patients of the risk of severe asthma attacks and increased mortality associated with overuse of SABA, with or without anti-inflammatory maintenance therapy in patients with asthma.
Healthcare professionals are advised not to prescribe SABA to people of any age with asthma without a concomitant prescription of an inhaled corticosteroid, ensure all patients with asthma receive optimal anti-inflammatory maintenance therapy even when their asthma is well controlled and to review patients using a SABA more than twice weekly or where there is an increase in SABA use or a failure to collect prescribed anti-inflammatory maintenance treatment.
It is also recommended that patients are advised to seek urgent medical assistance for worsening asthma symptoms, to use the asthma anti-inflammatory maintenance medication as prescribed by a healthcare professional even when asthma is well-controlled and the blue inhaler is rarely or never needed and track the doses used of SABA inhalers, either with a device counter or manually, seeking a review if they use a SABA more than twice weekly.
Action: Clinicians should be aware of this month's new guidance and implement any necessary changes to practice.
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