Projects & Collaborations
SHARP - Severe Heterogeneous Asthma Research collaboration
Research Networks (Institutional Membership) | 2 Project Members
The Swiss Severe Asthma Registry is a Member of SHARP- Severe Heterogeneous Asthma Research collaboration - Patient centred: A European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical Research Collaboration.
SHARP is a clinical research collaboration bringing together four key stakeholders to develop and deliver cutting edge severe asthma research: patients (people affected by severe asthma), clinicians, scientists and pharmaceutical industry.
SHARP aims to affect a step-change in asthma research culture across Europe, placing emphasis on ambitions that serve the collective needs of the asthma research community and bringing people with asthma to the centre of the research environment in a real-world context.
The Visions of SHARP are:
- Develop definitions of severe asthma that is used by all. Currently severe asthma means different things depending where one lives
- End dependency on oral corticosteroids to achieve asthma control
- Access to severe asthma specialists for all severe asthma patients
- To understand the heterogeneity in mechanisms of severe asthma
- Prevention of severe asthma
At the Moment Switzerland is actively involved in several projects and providing data from Switzerland.
In addition, we are belonging to the core group (represented by Fabienne Jaun) of the SHARP signature Project; Description of the Severe Asthma Population in European countries collaborating with SHARP.
This is a collaborative project within 23 SHARP participating countries to describe and summarise the data from the SHARP registries on severe asthma patients’ demographical, clinical, and disease characteristics.
Description of the project:
- Patients with severe asthma account for a large portion of the disease burden, although they represent a relatively small portion, around 5-8 %. Severe asthma is characterised by heterogeneity, with many phenotypes, which, together with its prevalence, challenges us to reveal its characteristics and underlying mechanisms.
- We need large real-world registries in different countries to understand and reveal the characteristics of the various severe asthma phenotypes, which would improve asthma patient care.
- The Severe Heterogeneous Asthma Registry, Patient-centred (SHARP) Clinical Research Collaboration has created a network of national registries and severe asthma centers that work together to perform registry-based real-world research and clinical studies on a pan-European scale.
- The Descriptive manuscript project aims to summarise the data from the SHARP registry throughout most European countries on severe asthma patients’ demographical, clinical, and disease characteristics.
- This study focuses on the variables most commonly evaluated by severe asthma clinicians, including, but not limited, data about the age of asthma onset, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking history, lung function, asthma control (as expressed by symptom burden and exacerbations in the previous year), medications used (with emphasis on oral corticosteroids and biological therapies), biomarkers such as FeNO and blood eosinophils, and common comorbidities.
- So far, over 9,500 patients with severe asthma from 23 registries have been analysed.
- Our preliminary results indicate that most patients with severe asthma in the SHARP CRC were female, with a long history of adult-onset asthma and affected lung function.
- Significant heterogeneity was observed in asthma control, medication use, smoking history, and comorbidities.
- We continue to collect more patients, with the planned analysis including further characterising patients based on clinically relevant outcomes.
- Our findings will have important implications for individuals with severe asthma, healthcare professionals, and policymakers in Europe and suggest potential future recommendations for improving the management and outcomes of severe asthma in Europe.
