Chronic respiratory illnesses, e. g. asthma, COPD and interstitial lung disease, affect millions of people worldwide causing significant morbidity and mortality. Despite high healthcare expenditure, clinical outcomes in these conditions remain poor and the development of new classes of drugs has been slower than in other specialties. Improvement in outcomes and drug development is hindered by a major limitation: the lack of sensitive physiological measures that can accurately quantify respiratory function and disease activity, that in turn leads to:
(i) Inability to detect disease early when chances of treating it effectively are greater
(ii) Poor stratification and phenotyping of disease pathophysiology with consequent poor treatment targeting
(iii) Lack of specific or sensitive endpoints that can predict/assess disease progression or treatment response, which can be used in novel drug research trials or clinically
(iv) Poor ability to differentiate between traits (e.g. cardiac vs respiratory) in multi-morbid patients
Experts in the field advocate that a way forward to make progress is to focus on identifying "treatable traits" in respiratory diseases that are also objective, measurable, and modifiable. We propose that comprehensive physiological phenotyping should be an important integral part of this effort.
As such, the overarching scope of this Research Topic is to collate a series of original research and review articles presenting the state-of-the-art on new methods and technology for assessing respiratory physiology, that can address the challenges in respiratory medicine highlighted above. This will contribute to a better understanding of disease pathophysiology and will aid a movement towards "precision medicine": targeting the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.
Authors are invited to submit original research or review articles covering the wider spectrum from bench to clinical studies focusing on:
- Innovative physiological techniques and technologies for measuring cardio-respiratory function in health and disease. These approaches include application of known research physiological methods that may not have been widely established clinically, (e. g. tests of small-airway function), emerging and novel techniques to assess lung physiology, and new imaging techniques (e. g. MRI of hyperpolarized gas) that aid diagnosis, disease stratification and monitoring across disease entities in cardio-respiratory medicine.
- Development of novel clinical and physiological endpoints for assessing and monitoring disease progression and treatment response, for clinical trials or practice.
- Importance of a multi-targeted approach in the assessment of cardiopulmonary function in symptomatic respiratory patients (e. g. breathlessness), highlighting the importance of incorporating exercise physiology testing.
- Phenotyping respiratory diseases using a multitude of assessments including physiology and basic biology.
Chronic respiratory illnesses, e. g. asthma, COPD and interstitial lung disease, affect millions of people worldwide causing significant morbidity and mortality. Despite high healthcare expenditure, clinical outcomes in these conditions remain poor and the development of new classes of drugs has been slower than in other specialties. Improvement in outcomes and drug development is hindered by a major limitation: the lack of sensitive physiological measures that can accurately quantify respiratory function and disease activity, that in turn leads to:
(i) Inability to detect disease early when chances of treating it effectively are greater
(ii) Poor stratification and phenotyping of disease pathophysiology with consequent poor treatment targeting
(iii) Lack of specific or sensitive endpoints that can predict/assess disease progression or treatment response, which can be used in novel drug research trials or clinically
(iv) Poor ability to differentiate between traits (e.g. cardiac vs respiratory) in multi-morbid patients
Experts in the field advocate that a way forward to make progress is to focus on identifying "treatable traits" in respiratory diseases that are also objective, measurable, and modifiable. We propose that comprehensive physiological phenotyping should be an important integral part of this effort.
As such, the overarching scope of this Research Topic is to collate a series of original research and review articles presenting the state-of-the-art on new methods and technology for assessing respiratory physiology, that can address the challenges in respiratory medicine highlighted above. This will contribute to a better understanding of disease pathophysiology and will aid a movement towards "precision medicine": targeting the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.
Authors are invited to submit original research or review articles covering the wider spectrum from bench to clinical studies focusing on:
- Innovative physiological techniques and technologies for measuring cardio-respiratory function in health and disease. These approaches include application of known research physiological methods that may not have been widely established clinically, (e. g. tests of small-airway function), emerging and novel techniques to assess lung physiology, and new imaging techniques (e. g. MRI of hyperpolarized gas) that aid diagnosis, disease stratification and monitoring across disease entities in cardio-respiratory medicine.
- Development of novel clinical and physiological endpoints for assessing and monitoring disease progression and treatment response, for clinical trials or practice.
- Importance of a multi-targeted approach in the assessment of cardiopulmonary function in symptomatic respiratory patients (e. g. breathlessness), highlighting the importance of incorporating exercise physiology testing.
- Phenotyping respiratory diseases using a multitude of assessments including physiology and basic biology.
