Asthma phenotypes in a multi-ethnic Asian cohort

Area of Science:

• Respiratory Medicine
• Clinical Phenotyping
• Genetics and Ethnicity in Disease

Background:

• Asthma phenotypes are crucial for understanding disease pathobiology.
• Existing asthma phenotype research primarily focuses on Caucasian populations.
• Ethnic variations in asthma phenotypes suggest ethnicity influences disease expression.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and compare asthma phenotypic clusters in a multi-ethnic Southeast Asian cohort.
• To investigate the influence of ethnicity on asthma phenotypic expression within this population.

Main Methods:

• Latent class analysis was applied to adult asthma patients from Singapore.
• Data included demographics, clinical characteristics, lung function, and asthma control metrics.
• Analysis was performed on separate test and validation cohorts for robustness.

Main Results:

• Three distinct asthma phenotypic clusters were consistently identified in both test and validation cohorts.
• Significant differences in ethnic composition and asthma control were observed across clusters.
• Specific clusters were characterized by ethnicity (e.g., Chinese females), obesity, and atopy.

Conclusions:

• Three phenotypic clusters were identified in the multi-ethnic Southeast Asian asthma population.
• Ethnic differences within clusters suggest inherent variations among ethnic groups influence asthma phenotypes.
• Findings underscore the importance of considering ethnicity in asthma phenotyping and management.