Asthma-Dx

The Asthma-Dx study is aiming to improve how asthma is diagnosed. Asthma causes symptoms like coughing, breathlessness, and wheezing, but these can come and go, which makes it hard to diagnose. Sometimes people are told they have asthma when they don’t, or their asthma is missed completely. Both situations can lead to problems.

We want to look at whether we can detect asthma more accurately, using new techniques and tests and will compare them to current methods. The study is inviting 100 people with suspected asthma and 50 healthy volunteers to take part.

You can take part in Asthma-Dx if you met the following criteria:

Inclusion Criteria

All:

1)      Participant is willing and able to give informed consent for participation in the study

2)      Aged 18 to 59 years

Suspected Asthma (SA) cohort:

1)      Presenting to primary care with symptoms suggestive of asthma e.g. breathlessness and/or wheeze and/or cough where the clinician would normally initiate further investigations for potential asthma.

Exclusion Criteria

All:

1)      Current or ex-smoker (including tobacco, cannabis and e-cigarettes). Having smoked less than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime can be included (as per CDC definition of a never-smoker), provided last smoking was at least a year ago.

2)      Pre-existing or previously diagnosed chronic respiratory disease including asthma (resolved diagnoses or previous short-term treatments for asthma or other respiratory disease such as preschool wheeze labelled as asthma are eligible for inclusion)

3)      Other current/recent medical condition which affects breathing or the immune system (hay fever/atopy can be included)

4)      Current regular use of an inhaled steroid/long-acting bronchodilator or systemic immunosuppression (nasal steroids, or use of short-acting bronchodilators is allowed). Where possible, we will wait 6 weeks post-oral steroid course before diagnostic testing, as is recommended in clinical guidelines, unless there is a relevant clinical reason to do this sooner, as determined by the PI/usual GP.

5)      Currently pregnant (this is due to the contra-indication to spirometry testing when pregnant, due to physiological changes and forced exhalations resulting from the reduced lung capacity, therefore we will not require formal pregnancy testing before participation)

6)      Unstable/severe symptoms and/or any safety concerns which would make diagnostic assessment in a non-clinical research setting inappropriate for them or the research staff.

Healthy Volunteers:

As above for ‘All’ and:

1)      Current respiratory symptoms or suspicion of asthma or other chronic respiratory disease diagnosis

2)      Childhood diagnosis of asthma or other chronic respiratory problems in childhood, including preschool wheeze

• All participants will have a phone or video call with one of our research team to confirm eligibility, obtain informed consent, and schedule their in-person study appointment.
• During the study visit, all participants will do panel of new diagnostic tests alongside the standard asthma tests.
• Participants in the Suspected Asthma cohort will also have a consultation with a research clinician, take part in home monitoring, complete an online survey, and may consent to an optional notes review.
• Additionally, a sub-group of Suspected Asthma participants and healthcare professionals involved in the study will be invited to take part in optional qualitative interviews. These interviews will explore the feasibility and acceptability of the new diagnostic tests.