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Phenotype-Driven Therapeutics in Severe Asthma

  • Asthma (WJ Calhoun and V Ortega, Section Editors)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Inhaled corticosteroids are the mainstay of asthma treatment using a step-up approach with incremental dosing and additional controller medications in order to achieve symptom control and prevent exacerbations. While most patients respond well to this treatment approach, some patients remain refractory despite high doses of inhaled corticosteroids and a long-acting β-agonist. The problem lies in the heterogeneity of severe asthma, which is further supported by the emergence of severe asthma phenotypes. This heterogeneity contributes to the variability in treatment response. Randomized controlled trials involving add-on therapies in poorly controlled asthma have challenged the idea of a “one size fits all” approach targeting specific phenotypes in their subject selection. This review discusses severe asthma phenotypes from unbiased clustering approaches and the most recent scientific evidence on novel treatments to provide a guide in personalizing severe asthma treatment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy, and Immunologic Diseases, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Medical Center Blvd, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA

    Maria Theresa D. Opina & Wendy C. Moore

Authors
  1. Maria Theresa D. Opina
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  2. Wendy C. Moore
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Correspondence to Wendy C. Moore.

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Conflict of Interests

Dr. Opina has no conflict of interest to disclose. Dr. Moore reports grants from NHLBI and has been a subinvestigator on clinical trials sponsored by Aerovance, Amgen, Astrazeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Cephalon, Forest, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Medimmune, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and TEVA.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with animal subjects performed by the authors. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Asthma

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Opina, M.T.D., Moore, W.C. Phenotype-Driven Therapeutics in Severe Asthma. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep 17, 10 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11882-017-0678-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11882-017-0678-1

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