Researchers said Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association that using nasal swabs to determine the subtype of asthma in children may lead to more accurate prescription of medications and the development of better treatments for cases of a respiratory disease that was difficult to diagnose.
Juan Celedon, who led the study from Children’s Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said in a statement that asthma is a highly variable disease with different pathological patterns or mechanisms of action that respond differently to treatments.
Confirmation of the pathological pattern usually involves analysis of the genetic material of lung tissue samples extracted under general anesthesia, and doctors are often reluctant to undertake invasive diagnostic procedures on children, especially those with mild asthma.
In their study, the researchers applied analyzes of the genetic material to nasal lining cells that they obtained from swabs of 459 asthma patients, aged between 6 and 20 years. Most were from ethnic minorities where rates of severe asthma were higher than average.
The results showed that the pathological type of asthma called T2-HI, which was thought to be the most common in this age group, is actually less common than the type called T2-LO.
“We have better treatments for T2-HI disease, in part because clearer genetic determinants have helped improve research into this pathology,” Celedon said. “But now that we have a simple nasal swab test to detect other types, we can begin.” In research into developing biological treatments for T2-Lo type.