The upper-airway microbiome as a biomarker of asthma exacerbations despite inhaled corticosteroid treatment.
- Journal:
- The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.jaci.2022.09.041
- Affiliations:
- 14
- Authors:
- 17
Research Highlight
Saliva samples may predict response to asthma treatment
© Westend61/Getty Images
Bacteria in saliva could help indicate asthma patients who won’t respond to inhalers.
Asthma affects about 300 million people globally and is responsible for about 500,000 deaths.
One of the most effective and widely used treatments involves breathing in anti-inflammatory steroids using hand-held inhalers. But for roughly one in ten patients this treatment is ineffective.
It is very difficult to predict which patients won’t respond to inhaling steroids, and so researchers are looking for biomarkers that can indicate this.
Now, a team led by researchers from University of La Laguna has found that microbes in the saliva are promising for use as biomarkers.
They also found that the diversity and composition of the microbiome in the upper airway are associated with asthma patients who don’t respond to inhaling steroids.
References
- The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 151, 706–715 (2023). doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2022.09.041