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What is Severe Asthma?

Asthma is a long-lasting disease. It affects the airways that carry air in and out of the lungs. The airways can react to such things as dust, pollen, chemicals, or bacteria. Some symptoms of asthma are wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and trouble breathing. Most people with asthma can control their symptoms with medicine. They can still do their daily activities.

About 10-15% of people with asthma have severe asthma. There are different types of severe asthma. It can start in childhood or later in life. Medicines for asthma that are available right now often don’t work well for people with severe asthma. This disease can make their lives very difficult.

 

Examples of asthma symptoms: Difficulty breathing, coughing, wheezing, chest tightness.

What is PrecISE?

PrecISE is a research study to understand how to treat different types of severe asthma. PrecISE has completed enrollment.

This study is sponsored by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

About Us
Enrollment Goals for PrecISE: 600 adults, up to 200 adolescents.

How PrecISE is Different from Other Severe Asthma Studies

Many studies look only at the patient’s symptoms or lung function for choosing a medicine. But people with severe asthma can be very different from each other. They may have the same symptoms, but different things can be happening in their bodies that cause the same symptoms. This means that the same medicine might not work the same way in different people, even if they have the same symptoms. This is one reason that severe asthma is so hard to treat. 

PrecISE has two goals: 1) Research how to more easily identify some of the types of severe asthma. 2) Research treatments for the types of severe asthma being studied in PrecISE.

Adolescents / Families
For Adults
Different treatment responses for patients who are different but have the same diagnosis and the same drug. Some have no benefit, side effects; some have benefit with side effects, some have benefit with no side effects, and some have no benefit and no side effects.
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