National registry launched to fight global severe asthma battle

Image: (L-R) Associate Professor Mariko Koh, SSAR workgroup chair and Senior Consultant in the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine at SGH, speaking to Mr Orson Lim, a severe asthma patient. 

A research network led by NTU’s LKCMedicine and comprising public hospitals has been set up to tackle the issue of severe asthma in Singapore.

Severe asthma, which causes serious symptoms such as breathlessness, cough, chest tightness, and wheezing affects one in 20 asthmatics in Singapore.

The Singapore Severe Asthma Registry (SSAR), which includes partner hospitals such as the Changi General Hospital, Singapore General Hospital, and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, is the first multi-centre, large-scale registry of severe asthma patients in Singapore.

It aims to improve understanding of severe asthma, collect evidence of treatment effectiveness and safety, and identify predictors of treatment success.

It will also be a part of the International Severe Asthma Registry (ISAR), making it the largest international research collaboration in the history of respiratory medicine in Singapore.

Researchers can tap on SSAR’s data to address important research questions in severe asthma, improve early diagnosis for patients and promote best practices in severe asthma care.

By being part of ISAR, researchers and clinicians will be able to compare the data of Asian patients with non-Asian patients from other countries and the responses to treatment in Singapore with patients in other countries.