Precision medicine in severe pediatric asthma: opportunities and challenges

Severe pediatric asthma exerts a substantial burden on patients, their families and society. This review provides an update on the latest insights and needs regarding the implementation of precision medicine in severe pediatric asthma.

Biologicals targeting underlying inflammatory pathways are increasingly available to treat children with severe asthma, holding the promise to enable precision medicine in this heterogeneous patient population with high unmet clinical needs. However, the current understanding of which child would benefit from which type or combination of biologicals is still limited, as most evidence comes from adult studies and might not be generalizable to the pediatric population. Studies in pediatric severe asthma are scarce due to the time-consuming effort to diagnose severe asthma and the challenge to recruit sufficient study participants. The application of innovative systems medicine approaches in international consortia might provide novel leads for - preferably noninvasive - new biomarkers to guide precision medicine in severe pediatric asthma.

Despite the increased availability of targeted treatments for severe pediatric asthma, clinical decision-making tools to guide these therapies are still lacking for the individual pediatric patient.