Asthma Screening May Become Possible

(HealthScout) -- Claiming they've identified a single gene that could play a role in up to 40 percent of all asthma cases, a team of British and American researchers say their discovery opens the way for new drug treatments as well as a screening test for the disease.

"I've been in asthma research for 25 years, and this is far and away the greatest breakthrough in the disease that I've been aware of," says lead researcher Dr. Stephen Holgate, a professor at the University of Southampton in England.

"What we've found is a completely novel gene, and, as far as I'm concerned, this is a drugable target," Holgate says.

But other scientists question the findings, announced through news releases but not yet published in any scientific journals.

"We've known for a hundred years that asthma is a genetically determined disease, and this is nothing new," says Dr. Kaye Kilburn, a pulmonary expert at the University of Southern California. He says the researchers have provided no concrete information with their announcement.

"This is a multimillion dollar coalition, and I'm just suspicious that this [announcement] is an effort to push a new product," Kilburn says. "If the science appears, and it shows a bit of promise, then perhaps it will be worth something to comment about, but right now I view this as cheap advertising."

The research team included scientists and researchers from Southampton University, the drug-maker Shering-Plough and Genome Therapeutics Corporation.

The team screened more than 300 British families of asthma sufferers, collecting both detailed clinical information and DNA samples. Genome Therapeutics supplemented the study with research on families from the United States and helped pinpoint the gene with a new method it has developed.

"What surprised everybody was that it looks as if this gene has a very powerful influence on the disease, much more than previous reports of genetic variations," Holgate says.

The findings, he says, have two important implications: New drugs that target the gene could be available to asthma sufferers in six to eight years, "and because the gene is so closely linked with the disease, it could lead to an actual screening test for asthma."

"A screening test could create an opportunity for parents to intervene early in their children's lives to prevent the onset of the asthma through diet and exposure to environmental irritants," Holgate says.

"But there's a real possibility that, if you interrupt this gene [with drugs], you will be able to influence the effects of downstream events caused by environmental influences like pollution, diet, allergen exposure and viral infection," he says.

Kilburn, however, says the key to curing asthma lies in cleaning up the air and reducing the amount and types of chemicals people come in contact with.

"We reek with chemicals we don't need," Kilburn says.

"We've known for the past 50 years that asthma is basically an environmental exposure disease," he says. "Now, to say that we should be exploring additional treatments which would take attention away from what we really should be doing, which is to avoid exposure [to environmental irritants], is a direction which is not plausible or economical."

Some 17 million Americans suffer wheezing and shortness of breath brought on by asthma.

To learn more about the disease, its treatments and possible causes, visit the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology or the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America online.

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