Derived asthma phenotypes and their descriptive names
Based on the DEC computational metrics, a three-cluster solution had the
best metrics, but when subjected to a clinical review, we determined
that a four-cluster solution was the most meaningful and valid
representation of the data, both clinically and scientifically,
capturing the diversity of phenotypes, hence we chose the four-cluster
solution. The clusters were given the following descriptive names:
- Phenotype 1 (n=458, 24.2%): troublesome late-onset, non-atopic asthma
with more women and smokers
- Phenotype 2 (n=545, 28.7%): Female-dominated early adult-onset asthma
- Phenotype 3 (n=358, 18.9%): Adult-onset asthma with high inflammation
- Phenotype 4 (n=534, 28.2%): Early-onset, mild, atopic asthma
Detailed information on differences between clusters can be found in the
supplementary material.