title: Emerging drugs for asthma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Current drug treatments for asthma relieve bronchospasm and airway inflammation but do not offer a cure, and symptoms return when treatment is stopped. Asthma management guidelines emphasize the importance of effective asthma treatment to achieve and maintain asthma control. However, despite widely available and effective treatments, achieving asthma control is still an unmet need for many patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Remarkable efforts have been made to identify the characteristic features of difficult-to-control (usually severe) asthma that are different from those described for mild-to-moderate asthma, setting the stage for the development of new and even individualized therapies. The most fascinating options of the new asthma treatments are biologic therapies, in particular monoclonal antibodies. In addition, some novel once-daily combinations of long-acting β(2)-agonist and inhaled corticosteroids are under development.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Asthma is a complex syndrome made up of a number of disease variants or asthma phenotypes, with different underlying pathophysiology. As different drugs target different pathways, it is necessary to determine the individual profile of pathophysiological abnormalities for each patient. Several cytokines have been implicated in the inflammatory cascades leading to the different asthma phenotypes, and the most relevant ones are discussed. The challenge in treating asthma resides precisely in its heterogeneity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Allergy, Hospital La Paz Institute for Health Research (IdiPAZ), Madrid, Spain. squirce.hulp@salud.madrid.org
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Quirce
authors.forename: Irina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bobolea
authors.forename: Pilar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Barranco
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001249:Asthma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000628:therapy*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D006801:Humans; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
chemical_list: D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents