How to diagnose and phenotype asthma

Parameswaran Nair; Angira Dasgupta; Christopher E Brightling; Kian Fan Chung

doi:10.1016/j.ccm.2012.05.003

How to diagnose and phenotype asthma

Clin Chest Med. 2012 Sep;33(3):445-57. doi: 10.1016/j.ccm.2012.05.003. Epub 2012 Jul 7.

Authors

Parameswaran Nair¹, Angira Dasgupta, Christopher E Brightling, Kian Fan Chung

Affiliation

¹ Department of Medicine, St Joseph's Healthcare, McMaster University, 50 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, Ontario L8N4A6, Canada. parames@mcmaster.ca

PMID: 22929094
DOI: 10.1016/j.ccm.2012.05.003

Abstract

Asthma has been described as a chronic disease of the airways characterized by variable airflow obstruction, airway hyperresponsiveness, and airway inflammation. This review discusses the diagnosis and phenotyping of asthma, with a special emphasis on phenotyping based on the nature of cellular inflammation and radiological imaging and how this could be used to direct the treatment of asthma and, in the future, to apply specifically directed therapies to specific phenotypes.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Asthma / diagnosis*
Asthma / physiopathology
Asthma / therapy
Humans
Inflammation
Phenotype*