Asthma phenotypes today.

ABSTRACT

PubMed databases were searched for articles regarding asthma phenotypes. Asthma has long been recognized as a heterogeneous disease, with hallmark features including age of onset, pattern of severity and other clinical characteristics, but recently it is no longer considered as single disease but rather as a series of complex, overlapping individual phenotypes, and a novel classification of the disease according to the nature of the underlying airway inflammation has been suggested. It has become increasingly clear that asthma is a complex syndrome. Recognition of specific subphenotypes may improve our understanding of underlying genetic basis and of pathophysiologic mechanisms as well as of response to treatment.