Asthma phenotypes in children and stratified pharmacological treatment regimens

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Asthma is the most common inflammatory disease in childhood. The interaction of genetic, environmental and host factors may contribute to the development of childhood asthma and defines its progress, including persistence and severity. Until now, various classifications of childhood asthma phenotypes have been suggested based on patient’s age during onset of symptoms, type of inflammatory cells, response to treatment and disease severity. Many efforts have been carried out to identify childhood asthma phenotypes and to clarify which are the risk factors that define asthma prediction and the response to therapy. The identification of asthma phenotypes has not only prognostic but also therapeutic role. However, the classification of asthma phenotypes is complex due to the heterogeneity of the disease.

Areas covered: The current childhood asthma phenotypes and the new therapeutic strategies for each phenotype are reviewed.

Expert commentary: There are multiple phenotypes in childhood asthma and it is crucial to define them before the initiation of personalized treatment. Both the therapeutic strategy and monitoring should follow the recent guidelines.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood asthma phenotypes
• personalized treatment
• wheezing
• asthma monitoring
• asthma endotypes

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.