Asthma: Phenotyping Exacerbations
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Phenotyping Asthma Exacerbations: A Longitudinal Cohort Study
IRAS ID
259343
Contact name
Tim Harrison
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Asthma is a common lung condition that often starts in childhood, although it can begin in adult life.
Asthma exacerbations (asthma attacks) are very common in the UK. They are frightening for patients, expensive for the health service and occasionally lead to avoidable deaths. In the UK, asthma attacks kill nearly 15,00 people per year and someone has a potentially life threatening attack every 10 seconds.
Despite the importance of asthma attacks, they remain poorly defined. Although some of the triggers for asthma attacks are understood, the resultant phenotypes, or characteristics, of attacks are not.
This study aims to phenotype asthma attacks and relate them to the stable asthma phenotype. Increased knowledge about the nature of asthma attacks, may lead to the development of more targeted treatment options.
We will achieve this by establishing a large group of well characterised group of participants with asthma. They will be phenotyped at a Baseline Visit and then followed over a period of time. They will be asked to attend for an annual review and for an unscheduled visit when they perceive their asthma symptoms are worsening. During this visit, they will be assessed by a doctor and potentially undergo the exacerbation visit.
We also hope to improve our ability to predict asthma attacks by collecting data on the use of Salbutamol (inhaled reliever medication) via Smart Inhalers.
The study is planned to last for 3 years, with a recruitment period of 2 years and will include 200 participants with asthma. Potential participants must have had an asthma attack in the previous 12 months.
REC name
HSC REC A
REC reference
19/NI/0148
Date of REC Opinion
20 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion