Medicus, Vol. 20 No. 2_Alergije, 2011.
Review article
Impact of Asthma Phenotypes on Therapeutic Selection
Alenka Gagro
; Klinika za dječje bolesti Zagreb
Abstract
Asthma is characterized by great heterogeneity in the degree of airway obstruction, sense of breathlessness, chest tightness, wheezing and coughing, and bronchial hyperreactivity in methacholine provocation test. International guidelines for the classification and treatment of asthma, which are subject to occasional critical evaluations and changes, seek to improve patient care. The need for changing these guidelines results from the studies of pathophysiological mechanisms of development, exacerbation and persistence of asthma. Although the treatment is properly applied, some patients will not establish a good control of asthma. These patients should be evaluated in greater detail and their physicians should take an individual approach to the selection of therapy. It is expected that a better knowledge of clinical, etiological and pathophysiological factors in asthma will help us define common features among subgroups of patients and thus lead to the description of different asthma phenotypes. Phenotype in this sense implies a set of observable and measurable characteristics of patients with asthma incurred as a result of the expression of the genotype and the interaction with the environment. Using this approach should improve rational treatment of asthma, including the selection of the most effective drug among a number of new drug-candidates for certain groups of patients.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
81081
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2011.
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