Severe asthma patients less responsive to treatment

People with severe asthma are less likely to respond to the treatment they depend on compared to people with mild asthma, according to new research. The findings come from the first analysis of a study that will collect over three million samples from 300 children and 700 adults, some with severe asthma, some with non-severe asthma, and some without asthma. The research, led by Imperial College London, is being presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress in Barcelona today. Although asthma is common, it is not widely known that there are different types of the condition. Experts don't yet understand why some people suffer a more severe form of the disease than others. The EU-funded U-BIOPRED project is looking at how severe asthma, often described as 'steroid-dependent', differs from one person to another, in the hope of categorising the disease into sub-groups. The aim is for researchers to develop more personalised medicine, which treats the specific disease in each individual.