Persistent Airway Plugs: A Call for Clinical Recognition and Novel Therapies

Svenningsen and Nair discuss the study of Tang and colleagues in which they take advantage of baseline and Year 3 chest computed tomography (CT) scans acquired from the SARP-3 (Severe Asthma Research Program-3) study to provide new information regarding the temporal behavior of airway mucus plugs and their relationship with changes in lung function. Mucus plugs observed on CT were discovered to be a persistent asthma phenotype. This is supported by the observation that 82% of people with asthma with airway mucus plugs reported on their baseline CT also had mucus plugs on their follow-up scan acquired 3 years later. In conclusion, intraluminal mucus or plugs are an important feature of asthma pathophysiology. Tang and colleagues advance this understanding by establishing plugs as a stable asthma phenotype and contributor to airflow obstruction, collectively framing intraluminal plugs as a therapeutic target.