Clinical and inflammatory characteristics of the European U-BIOPRED adult severe asthma cohort

Dominick Shaw , Ana Sousa , Stephen Fowler , Louise Fleming , Graham Roberts , Julie Corfield , Ioannis Pandis , Aruna Bansal , Elisabeth Bel , Charles Auffray (1) , Chris Compton , Hans Bisgaard , Enrica Bucchioni , Massimo Caruso , Pascal Chanez (2) , Barbro Dahlén , Sven-Erik Dahlén (3) , Kerry Dyson , Urs Frey , Thomas Geiser , Maria Gerhardsson de Verdier , David Gibeon , Yi-Ke Guo , Simone Hashimoto , Gunilla Hedlin , Elizabeth Jeyasingham , Pieter-Paul Hekking , Tim Higenbottam , Ildikó Horváth , Alan Knox , Norbert Krug (4) , Veit Erpenbeck , Lars Larsson (5) , Nikos Lazarinis , John Matthews (6) , Roelinde Middelveld , Paolo Montuschi (7) , Jacek Musial (8) , David Myles , Laurie Pahus (9) , Thomas Sandström , Wolfgang Seibold , Florian Singer , Karin Strandberg , Jorgen Vestbo (10) , Nadja Vissing , Chris von Garnier , Ian Adcock , Scott Wagers , Anthony Rowe , Peter Howarth , Ariane Wagener , Ratko Djukanovic , Peter Sterk , Kian Fan Chung (11) , Christophe Pison (12, 13)

1 Unité de Génétique Moléculaire et de Biologie du Développement
2 Service des Maladies Respiratoires [Marseille]
3 Karolinska Institutet [Stockholm]
4 Fraunhofer ITEM - Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine
5 Department of Clinical Neuroscience
6 Alliance Global Water Adaptation
7 DAUIN - Department of Computer Engineering
8 Department of Medicine
9 APHM - Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Marseille
10 Wythenshawe Hospital
11 Airway Disease Section, National Heart and Lung Institute
12 LBFA - Laboratoire de bioénergétique fondamentale et appliquée
13 CHUGA - Centre Hospitalier Universitaire [CHU Grenoble]

U-BIOPRED is a European Union consortium of 20 academic institutions, 11 pharmaceutical companies and six patient organisations with the objective of improving the understanding of asthma disease mechanisms using a systems biology approach. This cross-sectional assessment of adults with severe asthma, mild/moderate asthma and healthy controls from 11 European countries consisted of analyses of patient-reported outcomes, lung function, blood and airway inflammatory measurements. Patients with severe asthma (nonsmokers, n=311; smokers/ex-smokers, n=110) had more symptoms and exacerbations compared to patients with mild/moderate disease (n=88) (2.5 exacerbations versus 0.4 in the preceding 12 months; p<0.001), with worse quality of life, and higher levels of anxiety and depression. They also had a higher incidence of nasal polyps and gastro-oesophageal reflux with lower lung function. Sputum eosinophil count was higher in severe asthma compared to mild/moderate asthma (median count 2.99% versus 1.05%; p=0.004) despite treatment with higher doses of inhaled and/or oral corticosteroids. Consistent with other severe asthma cohorts, U-BIOPRED is characterised by poor symptom control, increased comorbidity and airway inflammation, despite high levels of treatment. It is well suited to identify asthma phenotypes using the array of “omic” datasets that are at the core of this systems medicine approach.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Médecine humaine et pathologie

Dominick Shaw, Ana Sousa, Stephen Fowler, Louise Fleming, Graham Roberts, et al.. Clinical and inflammatory characteristics of the European U-BIOPRED adult severe asthma cohort. European Respiratory Journal, 2015, 46 (5), pp.1308-1321. ⟨10.1183/13993003.00779-2015⟩. ⟨hal-01969506⟩