From Osler to Personalised Medicine in obstructive airways disease

We know that the features used to diagnose asthma and COPD overlap. For patients who have features of both, the diagnostic label of ‘asthma COPD overlap’ (ACO) is sometimes used. This has several definitions, and there is no consensus on how best to manage patients with this label, limiting its value.

On the other hand, we can identify treatments that patients are likely to respond well to, based on the presence of ‘treatable traits’. In this Editorial, we make an argument to adopt the ‘treatable traits’ approach for more effective, patient-specific care, rather treating everyone with a particular ‘disease label’ in the same way.

You can read the open-access paper freely in Respirology at: http://bit.ly/OslerVsPersonalisedMedicine