Report Calls for New COPD, Asthma Treatment Methods

The management and diagnosis of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma can be improved to better treat patients, according to a new paper published today in the European Respiration Journal.

“Airway diseases are complex and often overlap. Thus, in order to continue improving the management and prognosis of these patients, new biological knowledge needs to be incorporated into their clinical management,” researchers explained. “We propose here a strategy based on the presence of, nonmutually exclusive, treatable traits that may contribute to move the field towards precision medicine of airway diseases.”
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While more patients are being diagnosed with COPD and asthma, not all cases fit the stereotypical traits of either disease perfectly, they wrote.

Since the symptoms of COPD and asthma are similar, it’s difficult to diagnose and prescribe treatment for each. Precision, personalized treatment is needed to properly manage patients whose symptoms aren’t definitive of one disease or the other. This can be accomplished through the use of new technologies which help to identify "treatable traits" in each patient, including biological, cellular, and molecular traits. 

"The approach we are suggesting would radicalise healthcare and have significant implications for the organisation of a healthcare system," they concluded. "By recognising the clinical and biological complexity of a disease, we can use causal mechanistic disease pathways to adopt a more precise approach, which is hopefully more effective at managing patients with these conditions.” 

--Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Agusti A, Bel E, Thomas M, et al. Treatable traits: toward precision medicine of chronic airway diseases. Eur Respir J. February 1, 2016. doi:10.1183/13993003.01359-2015.