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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

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Murine Model of Allergen Induced Asthma
Published on: May 14, 2012
Hematocytometry analysis as discriminative marker for asthma phenotypes.
Karin J Velthove1, Wouter W van Solinge, Jan-Willem J Lammers
1Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacotherapy, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
|April 29, 2009
Summary
Neutrophil morphology, not just counts, helps identify difficult-to-treat asthma (DTA) phenotypes. The Utrecht Patient Oriented Database (UPOD) facilitates biomarker discovery for better asthma classification.
Area of Science:
- Clinical Medicine
- Biomarker Discovery
- Inflammatory Diseases
Background:
- Growing need for easily measurable biomarkers in clinical settings.
- Development of the Utrecht Patient Oriented Database (UPOD) for biomarker identification.
- Application of UPOD to find novel asthma phenotype biomarkers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify superior biomarkers for differentiating asthma phenotypes.
- To compare the efficacy of neutrophil morphology versus absolute counts in defining asthma subtypes.
Main Methods:
- Prospective study at University Medical Center Utrecht.
- Analysis of blood leukocyte counts and differential parameters in asthma patients and healthy controls.
- Logistic regression modeling using raw data files.
Main Results:
- Leukocyte parameters distinguished asthma patients from healthy individuals.
- Neutrophil morphology changes were more accurate (OR 8.0) than absolute neutrophil counts (OR 4.0) in defining difficult-to-treat asthma (DTA).
Conclusions:
- Neutrophil morphology parameters offer precise asthma phenotyping compared to absolute counts.
- UPOD enables large-scale biomarker studies integrating clinical, laboratory, and epidemiological data.
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