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Derivation and Validation of Clinical Phenotypes for Asthma: A Systematic Review

*Tasneem Zaihra, SUNY-Brockport 

Keywords: Asthma, phenotypes, systematic reveiw, cluster analysis

Traditional asthma diagnosis has relied on a clinical approach to classify asthma severity as the predictor of future exacerbations. Recent research has aimed to provide a more multidimensional approach to patient classification through phenotyping, allowing appropriate patient management at an individual level. We undertook a review of the current literature identifying studies that provide clinical phenotypes for asthma. We searched multiple databases for studies performing statistical analyses of asthma patients, specifically those studies that derived phenotypes and attempted to correlate them to clinically meaningful outcomes. Data were then extracted from relevant studies. Four studies were included in the review, each employing a distinct statistical method to define phenotypes. The number of subjects in the study ranged from 726 to 2435. The studies identified between three and six phenotypes. Multiple studies identified common phenotypes of older, late-onset asthma patients for whom current treatments have limited benefit compared to other commonly identified phenotypes.