Advances in Personalized Management of Patients with Airways Diseases

Asthma and COPD remain leading causes of morbidity worldwide, and both are increasingly recognized as heterogeneous conditions encompassing multiple inflammatory phenotypes and endotypes rather than single, uniform diseases. Traditional management has centered on stepwise algorithms guided primarily by spirometry and symptom scores, an approach that leaves many patients with poorly controlled disease or persistent exacerbations despite treatment escalation. Recent advances—including blood and sputum biomarkers, molecular phenotyping, and biologic therapies targeting specific inflammatory pathways such as IL-4/IL-13, IL-5, and TSLP—have opened the door to more individualized care. At the same time, optimizing inhaled medicine delivery, adherence, and device technique remains central to everyday practice. Respiratory clinicians now face the challenge of integrating these advances into practical, personalized management strategies for real-world patients.Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, yet management still relies heavily on standardized, guideline-based algorithms that treat these conditions as single diseases rather than heterogeneous syndromes. Patients with similar spirometric findings can have markedly different underlying inflammatory drivers, symptom burdens, exacerbation risk, and treatment responses. This Research Topic, launched alongside "What is New in Respiratory Medicine 2026", aims to advance the science and practice of personalized airway disease management by bringing together evidence on phenotyping and endotyping strategies, biomarker-guided treatment selection, and individualized use of inhaled medicines and biologics. We seek contributions that move beyond one-size-fits-all algorithms toward frameworks—such as treatable traits—that match therapy to the specific mechanisms driving disease in each patient, with the ultimate goal of reducing exacerbations, preserving lung function, and improving quality of life.This Research Topic welcomes contributions addressing personalized management across the spectrum of airway disease. Suggested themes include: phenotyping and endotyping of asthma and COPD; biomarkers (blood/sputum eosinophils, FeNO, genomic and transcriptomic signatures) for treatment stratification; selection, sequencing, and real-world outcomes of biologic therapies; optimizing inhaled medicine choice, device technique, and adherence; prediction and prevention of exacerbations; personalized approaches to asthma-COPD overlap and comorbidities; digital health tools, remote monitoring, and artificial intelligence applications in airway disease management; and long-term monitoring of lung function trajectories. We welcome original research articles, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, clinical trials, case reports/case series, and perspective or mini-review articles from respiratory medicine physicians, pharmacologists, and translational researchers.Dr. Athena Gogali has received honoraria for presentations and consultancy fees from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Chiesi, ELPEN, Guidotti, Menarini, Pfizer, and Vicore Pharma. Topic editors: Christos Kyriakopoulos, ATHENA GOGALI, Silvano Dragonieri, Konstantinos Kostikas Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/84723/advances-in-personalized-management-of-patients-with-airways-diseases