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Asthma Phenotypes and Biomarkers

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Abstract

For many years asthma has been described as a single disease. However, asthma is a heterogeneous syndrome with complex pathophysiology contributing to numerous clinical phenotypes. Despite various treatments a large proportion of patients remain uncontrolled or poorly controlled. Understanding the underlying inflammatory process in asthma is key for stratification of patients toward personalized therapy. Recently described inflammatory pathways include T2-high and T2-low or non-T2 inflammation. Clinically, T2-high inflammation is associated with atopic/allergic disease with increased evidence of eosinophils in the airway and the peripheral blood, whereas T2-low inflammation is correlated with neutrophilic or paucigranulocytic cells in the airways. Several biomarkers have been identified for T2-high inflammation; however, their utility is limited. Linking the clinical phenotypes to the underlying molecular biology will enhance the successful development of personalized therapies for asthma in the future.

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Correspondence to Farnaz Tabatabaian .

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Tabatabaian, F. (2018). Asthma Phenotypes and Biomarkers. In: Craig, T., Ledford, D. (eds) Allergy and Asthma. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58726-4_12-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58726-4_12-1

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