Digital Marker Improves Early Detection of Asthma Risk in High-Risk Children

Delays in identifying asthma in children can hinder the timely implementation of crucial preventive steps, including minimizing exposure to asthma triggers such as allergens, starting controller medications, offering asthma education, and delivering other tailored treatments or interventions. Researchers have now introduced a method that is not only more accurate but also more cost-efficient in predicting asthma diagnoses in children, utilizing widely available electronic health records. This adaptable solution has the potential to improve early detection and lower the risk of asthma progression in pediatric patients.

In a study led by the Indiana University School of Medicine (Indianapolis, IN, USA), the researchers improved the existing Pediatric Asthma Risk Score by leveraging electronic health record data to develop a new passive digital marker. This marker is computed by analyzing a combination of routinely gathered medical history data to assess the risk of childhood asthma. The study showed that this new passive digital marker outperformed the conventional Pediatric Asthma Risk Score in forecasting which children would eventually receive an asthma diagnosis between the ages of 4 and 11. Researchers reviewed the medical records of close to 70,000 children born from 2010 to 2017 through the Indiana Network of Patient Care databases.

The researchers emphasized that although clinicians already perform well in evaluating asthma risk, the process can be refined by streamlining a patient’s medical history to produce earlier and more precise predictions at the point of care. The research team’s next step involves launching a randomized clinical trial to test whether the passive digital marker improves the early diagnosis rate of asthma among children identified as high-risk. The trial will also investigate whether the use of this marker shortens the time between a child meeting diagnostic criteria for asthma and receiving a formal diagnosis.

"Our hope is that using the childhood asthma passive digital marker in clinical practice will improve the early detection of asthma risk in high-risk children, allowing for earlier interventions that could improve asthma control and lessen the future risk of hospitalization," said Arthur Owora, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine who led the study published in eClinicalMedicine. "Ultimately, we plan to study whether early interventions could help prevent the disease from progressing to more severe forms, which are often associated with higher health care needs and costs. This would be a win-win scenario for at-risk children, their parents, primary care physicians, and the health care system as a whole."