Autor(es): Santos, Adalberto ; Pité, Helena ; Chaves-Loureiro, Cláudia ; Rocha, Sílvia M. ; Taborda-Barata, Luís
Data: 2021
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/124951
Origem: Repositório Institucional da UNL
Assunto(s): Asthma; Endotypes; Metabolomics; Phenotypes; Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism; Biochemistry; Molecular Biology; SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Bronchial asthma is a chronic disease that affects individuals of all ages. It has a high prevalence and is associated with high morbidity and considerable levels of mortality. However, asthma is not a single disease, and multiple subtypes or phenotypes (clinical, inflammatory or combinations thereof) can be detected, namely in aggregated clusters. Most studies have characterised asthma phenotypes and clusters of phenotypes using mainly clinical and inflammatory parameters. These studies are important because they may have clinical and prognostic implications and may also help to tailor personalised treatment approaches. In addition, various metabolomics studies have helped to further define the metabolic features of asthma, using electronic noses or targeted and untargeted approaches. Besides discriminating between asthma and a healthy state, metabolomics can detect the metabolic signatures associated with some asthma subtypes, namely eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic phenotypes or the obese asthma phenotype, and this may prove very useful in point-of-care application. Furthermore, metabolomics also discriminates between asthma and other “phenotypes” of chronic obstructive airway diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or Asthma–COPD Overlap (ACO). However, there are still various aspects that need to be more thoroughly investigated in the context of asthma phenotypes in adequately designed, homogeneous, multicentre studies, using adequate tools and integrating metabolomics into a multiple-level approach.
