Asthma similarities across ProAR (Brazil) and U-BIOPRED (Europe) adult cohorts of contrasting locations, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Background: Asthma prevalence is 339 million globally. 'Severe asthma' (SA) comprises subjects with uncontrolled asthma despite proper management.

Objectives: To compare asthma from diverse ethnicities and environments.

Rural to urban migration contributes to the high burden of asthma in the urban area.

Introduction: It is unknown whether rural-urban migration contributes to worse the burden of asthma in the cities.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether subjects with asthma that migrated from rural areas to a large urban center in Brazil have more severe disease than asthmatic subjects that was born and always lived in the urban area.

Methods: This is a case-control study.

Eosinophilic asthma, according to a blood eosinophil criterion, is associated with disease severity and lack of control among underprivileged urban Brazilians.

Background: Asthma is a syndrome with multiple phenotypes. Peripheral blood eosinophil counts might be the ideal biomarker to identify subjects with eosinophilic asthma. It is available, inexpensive, and it is associated with eosinophilia in sputum.

Obesity and asthma: clinical and laboratory characterization of a common combination.

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between obesity and asthma.

Methods: This was a preliminary cross-sectional analysis involving 925 subjects with mild-to-moderate or severe asthma evaluated between 2013 and 2015. Obesity was defined on the basis of body mass index (BMI) and abdominal circumference.

Age is associated with asthma phenotypes.

Background And Objective: The relationship between age and asthma phenotypes is important as population is ageing, asthma is becoming common in older ages and recently developed treatments for asthma are guided by phenotypes. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether age is associated with specific asthma phenotypes.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study.

Comparison between two methods of asthma control evaluation based on individual perception.

Objective: To compare the subjective perception of asthma control reported by the patient with that measured by the score obtained on the Asthma Control Questionnaire 6-item version (ACQ-6) in patients with severe asthma and to determine whether asthma control is associated with the number of emergency room visits in the previous month.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 528 patients treated at the Bahia State Asthma and Allergic Rhinitis Control Program Central Referral Clinic between August of 2008 and March of 2010, in the city of Salvador, Brazil. The patients completed the ACQ-6 and answered a specific additional question in order to evaluate their own perception of asthma control in the previous week.