Clinical Mycology
Genetics and Genomics
Rehabilitation
This project aims to better understand infection risk in patients with asthma and COPD, who are more vulnerable to serious complications from flu and other infections due to their respiratory conditions and treatments. Using routine GP blood test data, researchers will apply modern statistical methods to develop an immunity score and assess how well it predicts future risk of infection-related hospitalisation. The study will involve patients and the public throughout the research process and could support the development of cost-effective digital tools to help monitor infection risk in people with respiratory disease.
Using longitudinal electronic healthcare records from the Optimum Patient Care Research Database (OPCRD), we will assemble large cohorts of patients with confirmed respiratory disease and link routine blood test results with subsequent clinical outcomes. Particular attention will be given to markers that reflect immune cell function, systemic inflammation and physiological resilience, as these factors may provide insights into susceptibility that are not captured by existing risk stratification methods.
The analysis will proceed in two stages. First, data-driven methods will be used to discover distinct immune profiles within asthma and COPD populations. These profiles will then be tested for their ability to predict important outcomes including infection-related hospitalisation and severe respiratory exacerbations. In the second stage, prediction models incorporating immune information will be compared with conventional clinical models based on demographic characteristics, comorbidities and disease history. The study will also develop a clinically interpretable immune health index derived from routine NHS data, providing an important benchmark against which more complex modelling approaches can be evaluated. Together, these analyses will establish the feasibility and potential clinical utility of immune-based risk stratification for respiratory disease management.
The short-term aim is to provide proof of concept that routine blood markers can be used to develop clinically relevant tools for immunity scoring in asthma and/or COPD. We plan to publish the findings of the model development/validation in an international journal of respiratory disease.
Longer-term we believe this approach offers the potential for a new paradigm in personalised immune function monitoring for patients with asthma/COPD (and other chronic diseases).
NIHR Exeter BRC.
Professor Umesh Kadam, Professor David Price.
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