Moving from umbrella terms to therapeutic features in airway disease: a paradigm shift

Moving from umbrella terms to therapeutic features in airway disease: a paradign shift

18th-19th November 2022 Prague

INTRO SPEECH

Step therapy has become the therapy of choice for non-communicable diseases. This therapeutic approach in chronic airway diseases is characterized by the gradual increase of longacting bronchodilators and/or inhaled corticosteroids. Unfortunately, although this strategy has significantly improved the outcomes of airway diseases, its drawbacks are now evident, and real therapeutic progress in these diseases has virtually come to a standstill.

However, the new paradigm for modern healthcare is a proactive and personalized response to patients’ symptoms, combining precision diagnosis and personalized treatment. In response to the shortcomings of stepwise therapy, a new approach known as the ‘treatable traits’ method has emerged. The “treatable traits” approach involves individually assessing patients for a predetermined list of treatable conditions, then developing and implementing an individualized treatment plan based on this multidimensional evaluation. The adoption of an approach based on the discovery and treatment of verified treatable traits is expected to improve the efficacy and safety of therapies for complex human diseases in general and airway disorders/diseases in particular,

Indeed, patients with chronic airway diseases have treatable lung characteristics, also defined treatable traits, such as airflow obstruction, exacerbations, and eosinophilic inflammation, which characterize many of the clinical phenotypes and may be present to different degrees in each patient. For these individuals, especially those with complex conditions such as severe asthma or multimorbid COPD, which tends to have more severe disease and increased co-morbidities, especially in the elderly, this new paradigm of disease management is very promising in terms of individualization of care and improved outcomes.

Therefore, the motivations for organizing this international symposium are to provide an opportunity to discuss new knowledge concerning candidate treatable characteristics in airway disorders/diseases, examine the most suitable therapeutic approaches and identify pathways to implement treatable traits in practice, so that we can move from umbrella terms such as asthma and COPD to therapeutic traits.