Asthma Clinical Research Center Research | Overview
The Asthma Clinical Research Center (ACRC) at Boston Children's Hospital run by Dr. Wanda Phipatanakul specializes in the study of pediatric asthma and allergy disorders. If you are interested in our current asthma or allergies studies, see here!
Our research focuses on environmental, epidemiological, and genetic risk factors for asthma and other allergic diseases through clinical intervention and observational trials. The ACRC is a well-established research center that includes all the tools, personnel, and expertise to run large prospective cohort, case/control studies, and clinical trials. We focus on individual and community based interventions. Many of our trials evaluate the efficacy of interventions that prevent the onset of asthma and allergic disease in genetically predisposed children, and in children exposed to environmental and sociodemographic risk factors. We are searching for strategies to understand, treat, prevent, and cure asthma and allergic disease such as food allergy, allergic rhinitis, and eczema. We are also focusing on other airway disorders triggered by the environment such as sleep disordered breathing.
Asthma and allergies
Asthma is a growing public health problem in the United States. Asthma affects one out of 11 (7.1 million) U.S. children. It is tragic that those afflicted wake up every day knowing they have an incurable disease that degrades their quality of life, most often lasts for a lifetime, and may lead to significant, long‐term disability. Among these children with asthma, more than half (4.1 million) suffer from an asthma attack, almost 200,000 are hospitalized and 321 (almost one each day among those under 25 years old) die of asthma each year, costing US society $56 billion annually. Asthma is a hidden national emergency; acting boldly to find a way to prevent it is a pressing priority.
Asthma prevention and treatment
There are many reasons why a child may develop asthma or have more severe asthma than others. Did you know that if a child has a parent with asthma, the child may be more likely to develop the disease? We are evaluating treatments and environmental interventions to find ways to prevent the onset of asthma, and in children who currently have asthma we are looking for ways to help them maintain better control and suffer from less exacerbations, which means less time spent at the doctors and more time in school and enjoying life!
Can asthma be nipped in the bud?
A multicenter clinical trial, led by Wanda Phipatanakul, MD, MS, of the Division of Allergy & Immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital, now aims to test whether the anti-IgE drug omalizumab (Xolair) can help. Learn more!