Severe Asthma in Children: Insights from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Severe Asthma Research Program

Abstract

Severe asthma in children is a complicated disorder characterized by ongoing symptoms and persistent airway inflammation despite treatment with high doses of inhaled and oral corticosteroids. Although knowledge of asthma and its associated mechanisms has increased substantially over the past decade, significant gaps remain about the determinants of severe asthma in children and the progression of the disorder across the lifespan. This review highlights recent insights into severe asthma in children derived from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), with an emphasis on age-specific findings and differences from severe asthma in adults. While the existence of a true severe asthma phenotype in children is subject to some debate, given the results of SARP and other investigators, we conclude that there is indeed a subgroup of children with severe asthma who have extreme morbidity and differentiating clinical features that are identifiable very early in life. However, unlike adults with severe asthma, children with severe asthma are more likely to fall in a more narrow cluster that is characterized by marked atopy and reversible airflow obstruction. While SARP has advanced knowledge of severe asthma in children, considerable gaps remain for which additional studies are needed.

FIG. 1.

Hypothesized development of severe asthma in children.