title: Defining severe asthma - an approach to find new therapies.
abstract: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that has reached epidemic proportions worldwide. It is treatable in the majority of patients, but there is no cure. Moreover, a proportion of patients suffer from severe, difficult-to-control disease with daily symptoms and high morbidity, making it imperative that we continue to improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of this disease. Severe asthma is a heterogeneous condition. A systematic approach to identify specific asthma phenotypes, including clinical characteristics and inflammatory processes, is the first step toward individualized, logical therapy. This review focuses on the need to characterize severe asthma phenotypes and on novel, targeted molecular treatment options currently under development.
authors.affiliation: Asthma and Allergy, Royal Brompton & Harfield NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alexandra M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Nanzer
authors.affiliation: Asthma and Allergy, Royal Brompton & Harfield NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Menzies-Gow
keywords: comorbidities; new biological treatments; phenotypes; severe asthma