Heterogeneity of phenotypes in severe asthmatics. The Belgian Severe Asthma Registry (BSAR)

Abstract

In this cohort of patients with severe asthma, the majority displayed indices of persistent airflow limitation and eosinophilic inflammation despite high-dose corticosteroids, suggesting potential for eosinophil-targeted biotherapies.

Small Airways Disease and Asthma Management: Is there a Connection?

“…Similarly, the majority of refractory asthmatics included in a UK registry had sputum eosinophils ≥ 3% 30 . The same was found in the Belgian severe asthma registry including more than 300 severe asthmatics, with 55% of patients being qualified as eosinophilic based on sputum eosinophil counts ≥ 3%, while only 20% had significantly raised sputum neutrophil count > 76% 57 . The importance of sputum eosinophilia was slightly less in the US Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP) cohort, with median value of sputum eosinophil count ranging between 1 and 2% in the most severe clusters 58 .…”

Nordic consensus statement on the systematic assessment and management of possible severe asthma in adults

“…Conversely, co-morbidities may be caused by severe asthma; steroid treatment is associated with an increased risk of iatrogenic co-morbidities including obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, depression, and gastrointestinal reflux [1,60,61](Table 2). …”

The quest for the grail: multidimensional efforts for understanding and targeting severe asthma

“…It is reassuring to note that the baseline characteristics of the U-BIOPRED cohort are similar to patients included in national registries of severe asthma such as the British Thoracic Society Severe Asthma Registry [28,31] and Belgian Severe Asthma Registries [32,33], which suggests that findings from U-BIOPRED should be generalisable to "real-life" patients with severe asthma.…”