Research Article Chronic Comorbidities Contribute to the Burden and Costs of Persistent Asthma Paula Kauppi, 1 Miika Linna, 2 Juha Jantunen, 3 Jaana E. Martikainen, 4 Tari Haahtela, 1 Anna Pelkonen, 5 and Mika Mäkelä 5 1 University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Respiratory Diseases and Allergology, Infammation Center, Skin and Allergy Hospital, P.O. Box 160, 00029 Helsinki, Finland 2 Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, P.O. Box 15500, 00076 Aalto, Finland 3 South Karelia Allergy and Environment Institute, L¨ a¨ ak¨ aritie 15, 55330 Tiuruniemi, Finland 4 Social Insurance Institution, Research Department, P.O. Box 450, 00101 Helsinki, Finland 5 University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Pediatric Diseases and Allergology, Infammation Center, Skin and Allergy Hospital, P.O. Box 160, 00029 Helsinki, Finland Correspondence should be addressed to Paula Kauppi; paula.kauppi@hus.f Received 14 September 2015; Accepted 25 November 2015 Academic Editor: Pham My-Chan Dang Copyright © 2015 Paula Kauppi et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. We aimed to study the prevalence of chronic comorbidities in asthma patients and the costs of health care use associated with asthma with comorbidities. Material and Methods. We analysed the prevalence of the four most common chronic diseases in asthma patients in 2008–2014 in Finland. Prevalence of coronary artery disease, diabetes and dyslipidaemia, hypertension, epilepsy, infammatory bowel disease, rheumatic diseases, and severe psychiatric disease was studied by register of the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. Te costs of health care services were collected from the registries maintained by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Results. Prevalence of asthma was 4.6% in 2014. Diabetes was among the four most common comorbidities in all the age groups. Te other common comorbidities were hypertension (≥46 years; 12.9–37.6%), severe psychiatric disorders (age groups of 16–59 years; 1.4–3.5%), and ischaemic heart disease (≥60 years; 10–25%). In patients with both asthma and diabetes, the costs of hospitalization were approximately 169% compared with patients with asthma alone. Conclusions. Prevalence of asthma increases by tenfold when aging. Te comorbidity diversity and rate are age-dependent. Prevalence of diabetes as comorbidity in asthma has increased. Costs of hospitalizations in asthma approximately double with chronic comorbidities. 1. Introduction Early diagnosis of asthma and efective asthma medica- tion together with well-organized control options, patient education, and self-management plans have led to major decrease in asthma hospitalizations [1, 2]. Nonadherence to antiasthmatic medication, long-term smoking, and poor lung function are risk factors for emergency department visits [3, 4]. We have earlier demonstrated that asthma hospital days are highest in 0–5-year olds and in older than 75-year olds [5]. Usually comorbidity in asthma has been referred as obesity, depression, or anxiety, refux disease, or diferent atopic disorders such as allergic rhinoconjunctivitis or atopic eczema. Mostly asthma has been presented as a part of atopic march or atopic constitution. Similarly, generalized systemic infammation has been represented as a cause for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and associated comorbidities such as coronary artery disease and osteoporosis. If searching for explanations for increased hospitalization rate in elderly asthma patients, atopic disorders, obesity, or refux disease are unlikely to be causative factors and thus other systemic diseases or associated comorbidities should be studied. In here, we searched for explanations for marked increase in asthma hospitalizations in the elderly by studying the prevalence and variety of comorbidities of asthma patients and health care costs associated with health care use. Comor- bidities were assessed as chronic diseases entitling patients to Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mediators of Inflammation Volume 2015, Article ID 819194, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/819194