Preface

Chapter 9 **Asthma-COPD Overlap Syndrome (ACOS): Current Understanding and Future Perspectives 203** Irina Bobolea and Luis Alejandro Pérez de Llano

**Childhood Asthma 217**

**VI** Contents

Chapter 10 **Complementary Therapy with Traditional Chinese Medicine for**

Bei-Yu Wu, Chun-Ting Liu, Yu-Chiang Hung and Wen-Long Hu

Despite the huge knowledge of the pathophysiological mechanisms of asthma, the current concerns for the clinics are the precise identification and characterization of the different phenotypes, to optimize the suitable therapy and a customized plan as much as possible. In fact, the asthma medications that we have available, and also many of those that are actually subject to clinical trials, would allow an overall functional and clinical control for the majori‐ ty of our patients, but unfortunately this goal cannot be achieved in all asthmatic patients.

For this purpose the clinical specificities developed in this book, particularly from those re‐ ported in the pediatric population to those reported in complex shapes at ACOS patients, emphasize the importance of identifying not only biomarkers but also critical aspects re‐ garding the variability in pharmacogenomics responsible for the individual response to the different drugs on the therapeutic plan.

The contribution of several well-known specialists with their profound knowledge inherent to this issue into different age groups and socio-geographical contexts has resulted in this interesting book with relevant key contents in asthma.

> **Prof. Celso Pereira** Coimbra University Coimbra, Portugal
