Wessex severe asthma cohort

对于许多人来说，哮喘是一个常见的致残问题，特别是那些患有严重的持续性疾病的人，这些疾病使他们无法正常生活。标准的哮喘疗法不足以控制这些人的症状，他们生活在对病情恶化的恐惧中，需要紧急护理和住院。因此，迫切需要确定新的治疗方法，以改善疾病控制和防止疾病恶化。为了能够更快地进行具有潜在新治疗方法的试验，重要的是要有具有良好特征的患者，因为人们认识到，严重哮喘可能是由一系列原因引起的，并不是所有人都可能通过特定的干预措施以相同的方式受益。考虑到这一点，这项提议将把韦塞克斯地区患有严重哮喘的患者聚集在一起，形成一个韦塞克斯严重哮喘队列，该队列可以进行详细的特征描述，并有可能参与新疗法的试验。这一特征将涉及记录疾病对日常症状和生活质量的影响，重点是鼻腔和鼻窦症状的存在和严重程度。通过一系列的呼吸测试，将对肺部的工作情况进行测量。通过诱发咳嗽、洗鼻、血液和尿液收集的生物样本，如痰，将被收集并用于评估呼吸道和身体内哮喘炎症的性质、程度和严重程度。其目的是将该队列作为评估正在开发的新疗法的重点，希望它们将导致患有更严重疾病的人的哮喘得到改善。这种特征将有助于确定哪些患者可能被最好地选择进行不同的干预，这取决于这些干预的工作方式，从而提供最好的机会来确定可以开发的更好的治疗方法，以帮助改善严重哮喘患者的生活质量。

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.