Scoping review of early pain-related outcome domains and measurement instruments after degenerative lumbar spine surgery.

Background: Optimization of perioperative pain interventions in lumbar spine surgery could reduce the incidence of acute and persistent postoperative pain and opioid consumption. Standardization in early outcome measurement provides a solid foundation for future clinical and research practices and should be integrated in core outcome sets for long-term treatment outcome evaluations. This scoping review provides an overview of outcomes used when evaluating early perioperative pain interventions after lumbar spine surgery.

Clinical profile of patients with adult-onset eosinophilic asthma.

Adult-onset eosinophilic asthma is increasingly recognised as a severe and difficult-to-treat subtype of asthma. In clinical practice, early recognition of patients with this asthma subtype is important because it may have treatment implications. Therefore, physicians need to know the distinct characteristics of this asthma phenotype.

Management of the patient with eosinophilic asthma: a new era begins.

Now that it is generally accepted that asthma is a heterogeneous condition, phenotyping of asthma patients has become a mandatory part of the diagnostic workup of all patients who do not respond satisfactorily to standard therapy with inhaled corticosteroids. Late-onset eosinophilic asthma is currently one of the most well-defined asthma phenotypes and seems to have a different underlying pathobiology to classical childhood-onset, allergic asthma. Patients with this phenotype can be identified in the clinic by typical symptoms (few allergies and dyspnoea on exertion), typical lung function abnormalities ("fixed" airflow obstruction, reduced forced vital capacity and increased residual volume), typical comorbidities (nasal polyposis) and a good response to systemic corticosteroids.

Predictors of frequent exacerbations in (ex)smoking and never smoking adults with severe asthma.

Background: Persistent eosinophilic airway inflammation is an important driver for asthma exacerbations in non-smokers with asthma. Whether eosinophilic inflammation is also a predictor of asthma exacerbations in (ex)smokers is not known.

Objective: The aim was to investigate factors associated with frequent exacerbations in never smokers and (ex)smokers with asthma.

Biomarkers to identify sputum eosinophilia in different adult asthma phenotypes.

Several biomarkers have been used to assess sputum eosinophilia in asthma. It has been suggested that the diagnostic accuracy of these biomarkers might differ between asthma phenotypes. We investigated the accuracy of biomarkers in detecting sputum eosinophilia (≥3%) in different adult asthma phenotypes.

Vitamin D reduces eosinophilic airway inflammation in nonatopic asthma.

Background: Low levels of vitamin D are associated with asthma severity, airway remodeling, and exacerbation rate increase, especially in nonatopic asthma. Reduced steroid responsiveness or impaired antimicrobial defense might be underlying mechanisms.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on eosinophilic and neutrophilic airway inflammation in patients with nonatopic asthma.

Severe adult-onset asthma: A distinct phenotype.

Background: Some patients with adult-onset asthma have severe disease, whereas others have mild transient disease. It is currently unknown whether patients with severe adult-onset asthma represent a distinct clinical phenotype.

Objective: We sought to investigate whether disease severity in patients with adult-onset asthma is associated with specific phenotypic characteristics.