Cabana MD, Kunselman SJ, Nyenhuis SM, Wechsler ME. Researching asthma across the ages: insights from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Asthma Network.
J Allergy Clin Immunol 2014;
133:27-33. [PMID:
24369796 PMCID:
PMC3901784 DOI:
10.1016/j.jaci.2013.10.026]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2013] [Revised: 10/14/2013] [Accepted: 10/15/2013] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Clinical asthma studies across different age groups (ie, cross-age studies) can potentially offer insight into the similarities, differences, and relationships between childhood and adult asthma. The National Institutes of Health's Asthma Research Network (AsthmaNet) is unique and innovative in that it has merged pediatric and adult asthma research into a single clinical research network. This combination enhances scientific exchange between pediatric and adult asthma investigators and encourages the application of cross-age studies that involve participants from multiple age groups who are generally not studied together. The experience from AsthmaNet in the development of cross-age protocols highlights some of the issues in the evaluation of cross-age research in asthma. The aim of this review is to summarize these challenges, including the selection of parallel cross-age clinical interventions, identification of appropriate controls, measurement of meaningful clinical outcomes, and various ethical and logistic issues.
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