Gene therapy strategies for asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a disease which is increasing in frequency and severity despite the incontestable advances in the understanding of its physiology and treatment. New therapeutic strategies are therefore required and at the time when a new treatment, that of gene therapy, is giving hope for the treatment of so far incurable illnesses, it would seem to us to be useful to discuss the possible use of this treatment in severe asthma and in particular in the case of the most severe asthmatic patients requiring continuous oral steroid treatment (referred to as steroid-dependent). These patients are those who require particular medical attention, they often need to be admitted to hospital and they represent over 50% of the total costs associated with asthma. No satisfactory alternative therapy is currently available. In this regard, a variety of gene-based strategies have recently been proposed for inflammatory and immunologic disorders. It is thus the purpose of this review to consider its application to asthma therapy, although there are very few published works that directly bear on gene therapy linked to asthma. After a brief outline of the epidemiology of asthma, its genetics and the available animal models, we will focus on its immunopathology slanting the discussion towards the possibility of a gene-based treatment.