Asthma Study Illuminates Disparities

When it comes to asthma research, apparently all bets are off when it comes to African-American children.

That's the conclusion of researchers at UC San Francisco.

A new study indicated that of the known genetic risk factors for asthma, only a small fraction – about 5% in total -- apply to the African-American population. Such factors can determine whether a child is not only predisposed toward asthma, but whether or not they would respond well to certain drugs.

“Almost all the genetic studies of asthma have been done using white patients only, but you can’t assume these results will apply to other ethnic groups,” said study senior author Esteban Burchard, M.D., director of the UCSF Asthma Collaboratory lab. 

The study did unearth some genetic risk factors for asthma in African-American children. And further research will be conducted to determine if the known risk factors for asthma are completely absent in the African-American population, or too subtle to have been detected in this study.

“This paper is an important first step towards truly understanding the biology of asthma in African-Americans,” Burchard said.

The study will appear in next month's issue of the journal Immunogenetics.