NEW STUDY LINKED ASTHMA SEVERITY TO BLACKS

Asthma a respiratory condition marked by attacks of spasm in the bronchi of the lungs, causing difficulty in breathing. It is usually connected to allergic reaction or other forms of hypersensitivity.

Airway inflammation is major part of asthma, and advancement in treatment are becoming more individualized based on the specific type of airway inflammation in a patient. Differences in airway inflammation can affect a patient's response to treatment, but whether the patterns of airway inflammation differ across race has, until now, been very unclear.

Black men and women are two to three times more likely than whites to be hospitalized or die from asthma. And while many factors contribute to the burden of asthma in African Americans -- such as access to health care and environmental exposures -- rates are disproportionate even when social and environmental elements are taken into account.

African Americans may be less responsive to asthma treatment and more likely to die from the condition, in part, because they have a unique type of airway inflammation, according to a recent study. 

The study is one of the largest and most diverse trials conducted in the U.S. on race and asthma, with 26 percent of the patients identified as African American. Researchers found that black patients were more likely to exhibit eosinophilic airway inflammation than whites, despite taking comparable doses of asthma medication, such as inhaled corticosteroids. The results are published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

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