Asthma soon to be diagnosed more easily? This new test could be a game changer
More than 4 million French people are affected by asthma. This chronic respiratory disease most often develops during childhood, but it can appear at any age. Today, screening is based on a clinical examination, as well as breathing tests, often followed by allergy tests (skin and/or blood). However, "asthma is difficult to diagnose before the age of 5, because it is less easy for a child of this age" to perform breathing tests, according to the European Lung Foundation .
Other diagnostic methods, simpler, faster, and, above all, more accessible to all, are therefore necessary. Researchers at Rutgers University in the United States have "discovered that a simple blood test can diagnose asthma and determine its severity, an advance that could transform the way the disease is identified and monitored," they said in a press release.
To develop this blood test, American scientists based their study on the following observation: "asthmatic patients have significantly elevated levels of a molecule called cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in their blood, sometimes up to 1,000 times higher than in people who do not suffer from asthma." After analyzing the blood of asthmatic patients and healthy people, they found that levels of this molecule were "systematically higher" in asthmatic patients, and that they "correlated with the severity of the disease."
This discovery could therefore "offer doctors a new tool to monitor their patients' health" and "track treatment response." They believe that in the future, their test "could lead to more personalized therapeutic approaches," and even improve the effectiveness of existing treatments, which do not work well in all patients. The American researchers are working to perfect their test, which "could be available in a year or two," estimates Dr. Reynold Panettieri, one of the study 's authors.
L'Internaute
