Revisiting differences between atopic and non-atopic asthmatics: When age is shaping airway inflammatory profile.

Background

Atopic asthma is one of the most common asthma phenotypes and is generally opposed to the non-atopic counterpart. There have been very few large-scale studies comparing atopic and non-atopic asthmatics in terms of systemic and airway inflammation across the age spectrum.

Methods

Here, we have undertaken a retrospective study investigating 1626 patients (924 atopic and 702 non-atopic asthmatics) recruited from our university asthma clinic who underwent extensive clinical investigations including induced sputum. Atopy was defined by any positive specific IgE to common aeroallergens (>0,35 kU/L). We performed direct comparisons between the groups and sought to appreciate the influence of age on the airway and systemic inflammatory components. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the University Hospital of Liege (Ref. 2016/276). Informed consents were obtained from healthy subjects.

Results

Atopic asthmatics were younger

Conclusions

We conclude that, while sharing many features, atopic group still differentiates from non-atopic asthmatics by demographics, functional and inflammatory profiles. When atopic asthmatics showed a constant eosinophilic pattern across the age spectrum, non-atopic asthmatics were found to be neutrophilic before the age of 50 but eosinophilic above 50 years old.

Informations de copyright

© 2022 The Authors.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

SG, FG, VP, MH: no competing interests. FS reports grants from GSK, Astrazeneca, Teva, Chiesi and Novartis; consulting fees from GSK, Astrazeneca, Amgen, Chiesi and Novartis; lecture payments from GSK, Astrazeneca, Teva, Chiesi and Novartis, outside the submitted work. RL reports grants from GSK, AZ, Novartis, Chiesi and Teva; royalties from patent AU2016328384, CA2997506, EP 3337393, US2020345266; consulting fees and lecture payments from GSK, AZ, Novartis, Sanofi and Chiesi, outside the submitted work.