Mario Castro, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, has received a five-year $1.1 million grant from the American Lung Association to fund an Asthma Clinical Research Center (ACRC). Washington University, Saint Louis University, the American Lung Association of Eastern Missouri (ALAEM) and private physicians have teamed up to establish this center.
"For the first time, Washington University will participate in a large multicenter study spanning almost 20 asthma centers addressing a common clinical problem," Castro said. All of the data will be shared. Johns Hopkins Medical Center will serve as the data-coordinating center by collecting the results from the participating centers.
The collaboration brings St. Louis into a network of 19 asthma research centers across the United States and establishes a unique partnership among St. Louis' two medical schools, the ALAEM and physicians in private practice. Washington University School of Medicine will lead the St. Louis team's clinical studies. Other sites in this "center without walls" include Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children's Hospital, Saint Louis University Hospital, Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, the Clinical Research Center located at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital and other medical sites convenient to patients.
Robert C. Strunk, M.D., and Edwin B. Fisher Jr., Ph.D., are co-investigators at Washington University. Raymond Slavin, M.D., and Brad Becker, M.D., will participate from Saint Louis University. Two physicians in private practice, Phillip Korenblat, M.D., and Jeff Tillinghast, M.D., also are taking part. The center just hired a nurse coordinator, Mary Ellen Scheipeter.
Participation in this multicenter network will give the St. Louis researchers access to a greater number of asthma patients. "This will give physicians helpful information on how to better manage asthma patients in their practice," Castro said.
Asthma is a chronic, long-term lung disease with no cure. It only can be controlled. Asthma sufferers experience difficulty breathing because their airways swell and constrict. Many factors can trigger an attack -- cigarette smoke, pollen, cold air and household dust. In St. Louis, the strongest triggers are cockroaches and the mites in household dust.
Those at highest risk for asthma include children living in poverty or in the inner city and African-Americans and Hispanics. While 6.3 percent of American children suffer from asthma, the rate is 11 percent to 12 percent in the St. Louis metropolitan area. And 15 percent of children who attend St. Louis City public schools have asthma.
Also, both the number of cases and the number of deaths from asthma are increasing in the St. Louis metropolitan region.
"We have great medications and understand more about the disease, but we are still seeing an increase in morbidity and mortality due to asthma," Castro said.
The researchers will try to develop new ways to help adults and children care for their disease in early life. "Children with chronic asthma that persists into adulthood may have impaired lung function, much like smokers," Castro said. "We want to find effective treatments to intervene as early as possible."
