Association between a four-locus gene model including IL13, IL4, FCER1B, and ADRB2 and asthma outcomes

This study aimed to explore the association between a four-locus gene model and asthma outcomes.

Four single-nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped in 139 patients with different asthma outcomes (clinical remission, relapse, or persistence). The high-risk and low-risk genotypes for asthma were evaluated according to the different genotypes that they carried. Differences in asthma outcomes and the factors affecting asthma prognosis were analyzed.

More patients with high-risk genotypes had severe asthma attacks than those with low-risk genotypes. Compared with patients in asthma clinical remission, patients with severe asthma attacks were at risk for asthma relapse and asthma persistence. In addition, smoking was a risk factor for asthma persistence. The older the age of asthma onset, the more likely it was to be persistent. More patients in the high-risk genotype group had an age of asthma onset younger than 6 years old and an asthma course longer than 4 years than in the low-risk genotype group, regardless of the confounding factors.

The patients with high-risk genotypes not only had more severe asthma attacks and a younger age of asthma onset but also had a longer course, which suggested that the gene model could serve as a tool for asthma prognosis assessment with moderate utility.