Researchers are reporting discovery of a genetic defect associated with poor response to a common asthma treatment. They found that asthmatic patients with the gene variant are less likely to respond to glucocorticoids and often develop severe asthma. The findings may be clinically useful in personalizing asthma treatments, they said.
In the study, the researchers retrospectively analyzed the association between patient genomes and lung function in more than 500 asthmatic patients who received daily oral glucocorticoids treatment or no glucocorticoids treatment. They found that a change to the gene HSD3B1 – specifically the HSD3B1(1245A) variant – is associated with poor lung function and glucocorticoid treatment resistance.
The study, partly funded by NHLBI, appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.