Asthma can be a combination of various diseases
The age of onset of inflammatory cells and define groups of patients who develop guiding the treatment of asthma as children may have a disease other than those that develop in adulthood. A study in the January issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology adds to the growing body of evidence that asthma is not a single disease but a group of syndromes with different origins and biological characteristics. The research team, led by Sally Wenzel, MD, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Medical and Research Center (USA), also found that the absence or presence of inflammatory cells called eosinophils, helped distinguish differences between patients with asthma.We found that patients whose asthma began in childhood allergies were more frequent than those whose asthma
began in adulthood, while adult-onset asthma was associated with more rapid loss lung function, Wenzel said. We were surprised that many patients showed no sign of inflammation, generally considered a feature of asthma, however, still had severe airflow limitation and many symptoms of asthma. The study represents the first time a research team has combined information from a detailed questionnaire with large amounts of biological data to define subsets of patients with asthma.These data should help doctors diagnose and treat their patients with asthma and to better predict the course of their disease. The data can also help guide the search for genetic causes of disease.The researchers studied 80 patients with severe asthma who had been referred to National Jewish Medical
and Research Center because high doses of inhaled or oral steroids failed to control their symptoms. Patients were divided into those who developed asthma before age 12 and those whose asthma developed later. The group of early development of asthma in the average age of 2.6 years, while the group of developing late-onset asthma in the average age of 27 years. We evaluated the differences in allergic reactions, symptoms, Pages: [1] 2 3