[Downloaded free from http://www.lungindia.com on Friday, July 22, 2016, IP: 14.139.56.194] Guidelines for diagnosis and management of bronchial asthma: Joint ICS/NCCP (I) recommendations Ritesh Agarwal, Sahajal Dhooria, Ashutosh Nath Aggarwal, Venkata N Maturu, Inderpaul S Sehgal, Valliappan Muthu, Kuruswamy T Prasad, Lakshmikant B Yenge, Navneet Singh, Digambar Behera, Surinder K Jindal, Dheeraj Gupta*, Thanagakunam Balamugesh, Ashish Bhalla, Dhruva Chaudhry, Sunil K Chhabra, Ramesh Chokhani, Vishal Chopra, Devendra S Dadhwal, George D’Souza, Mandeep Garg, Shailendra N Gaur, Bharat Gopal, Aloke G Ghoshal, Randeep Guleria, Krishna B Gupta, Indranil Haldar, Sanjay Jain, Nirmal K Jain, Vikram K Jain, Ashok K Janmeja, Surya Kant, Surender Kashyap, Gopi C Khilnani, Jai Kishan, Raj Kumar, Parvaiz A Koul, Ashok Mahashur, Amit K Mandal, Samir Malhotra, Sabir Mohammed, Prasanta R Mohapatra, Dharmesh Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Pallab Ray, Jai K Samaria, Potsangbam Sarat Singh, Honey Sawhney, Nusrat Shafiq, Navneet Sharma, Updesh Pal S Sidhu, Rupak Singla, Jagdish C Suri, Deepak Talwar, Subhash Varma Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Indian Chest Society and National College of Chest Physicians, Chandigarh, Punjab, India *Author deceased after submission. Address for correspondence: Dr. Ritesh Agarwal, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh ‑ 160 012, Punjab, India. E‑mail:
[email protected] Contents: 1. When should a diagnosis of asthma be considered? Executive Summary • A clinical diagnosis of asthma should be suspected A. Introduction in the presence of recurrent/episodic wheezing, B. Methodology breathlessness, cough, and/or chest tightness with no C.