Allergy Asthma Respir Dis.  2016 Jan;4(1):4-13. 10.4168/aard.2016.4.1.4.

Biomarkers of adult asthma and personalized medicine

• Sim DW
• Lee JH

• KMID: 2218613
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4168/aard.2016.4.1.4

Abstract

The concept of personalized medicine for disease diagnosis, treatment, and management, considering individual variability, including susceptibility, clinical manifestations, and drug responsiveness, is a global emerging trend in medicine, which is also inevitable. However, clinical applications of personalized medicine in the real-world practice have been limited to certain cancers so far. Furthermore, this new concept to the diagnosis and treatment of adult asthma has not been applied to clinical use. Asthma is a multifactorial and heterogeneous disease. It seems to encompass a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations with different underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. Thus, it is not easy to categorize by their clinical features alone. Endotypical categorization that considering specific pathophysiological mechanisms will be more helpful in applying the concept of personalized medicine. The success of personalized medicine depends on patient selection for precise prescription of asthma medications. In the recent years, many investigators and physicians have devoted a lot of effort to the discovery of reliable biomarkers in asthmatic patients, which will be able to actualize the personalized medicine in near future. Despite such great efforts toward investigation of good biomarkers, few things have turned out to be practical in the clinic. Easily interpretable biomarkers of asthma are necessary to assess early detection, determination of treatment, prognosis prediction, and monitoring of exacerbation. Herein, we review recent studies regarding disease classifications and biomarkers of asthma.

Keyword

Asthma; Biomarkers; Phenotype; Endotype; Personalized medicine

MeSH Terms

Adult*
Asthma*
Biomarkers*
Classification
Diagnosis
Humans
Precision Medicine*
Patient Selection
Phenotype
Prescriptions
Prognosis
Research Personnel

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 The schematic presentation of the underlying pathogenesis of allergic asthma. (A) The progress of allergic asthma demanded sensitization to an environmental allergen. Primary exposure to an allergen conducted activation of Th2 lymphocytes and ILC2. (B) Subsequently, re-exposure causes immediate reaction of the increasing production of Th2 cytokines, stimulation of IgE synthesis and accumulation of inflammatory cells in airway. PRR, pattern recognition receptor; IL, interleukin; ILC2, type 2 innate lymphoid cell; DC, dendritic cell.

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