Wessex severe asthma cohort

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Asthma is a common and disabling problem for many, particularly those with severe persistent disease that prevents them living a normal life. Standard asthma therapies are insufficient to control symptoms in these individuals and they live in fear of exacerbations that require emergency care and hospitalisation. There is thus an urgent need for the identification of novel therapeutic approaches that improve disease control and prevent disease exacerbation. To enable the more rapid conduct of trials with potential new treatments it is important to have well characterised patients, as it is recognised that severe asthma may arise from a range of causes and not all individuals are likely to benefit in the same way with specific interventions. With this in mind, this proposal will gather patients within the Wessex region with severe asthma, to form a Wessex severe asthma cohort, that can undergo detailed characterisation and be available to potentially take parts in trials of new therapies. This characterisation will involve documenting the impact of the disease on daily symptoms and quality of life, focusing on the presence and severity of nasal and sinus symptoms. Measures will be made of how well the lungs are working through a series of breathing tests. Biological samples, such as sputum, collected by inducing coughing, nasal washings, blood and urine will be collected and used to assess the nature, extent and severity of asthmatic inflammation within the airways and body. It is intended that the cohort would act as a focus for the evaluation of novel treatments that are being developed in the hope that they would lead to improvement in asthma in those with more severe disease. The characterisation would help determine which patients might best be selected for different interventions, dependent upon how these work, to give the best chance of identifying better treatments that can be developed to help improve the quality of life in those with severe asthma.