Asthma is conventionally viewed as “treatable but incurable.” However, advances in science are challenging this view, and researchers believe a cure may be within reach. The CURE Asthma initiative, a coalition of researchers and clinicians, has outlined a plan to achieve this goal.
The Burden of Asthma
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory condition of the airways, causing symptoms such as wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and coughing. In 2024, 478 Australians died from asthma, and in 2023–2024, there were about 32,000 hospitalisations where asthma was the main cause. Approximately 90% of these hospitalisations were potentially preventable with better community care. The health system spent an estimated A$1.3 billion on asthma in 2023–2024, yet outcomes have stalled or worsened over the past decade.
Evidence That a Cure Is Possible
In about 20–30% of cases, usually in children, asthma goes into “spontaneous remission,” where symptoms reduce and airway tissue returns to normal. This demonstrates that, in principle, all asthma should be curable. People with severe disease who take biological therapies can also experience sustained “on treatment” remission, with excellent symptom control, no attacks, and optimised lung function.
Defining a Cure
A cure for asthma would include sustained elimination of symptoms, normalisation of the underlying disease, and resetting of the molecular processes that drive asthma. This could involve a new type of medicine that “turns off” asthma or resets the “molecular memory” that sustains the disease. Biomarkers in blood, airway tissue, or exhaled air would confirm the cure after three to five years.
The Path to a Cure
Documentation of spontaneous remissions shows asthma is reversible. Researchers can identify risk factors such as family history, allergy, smoking, obesity, and poor air quality, and how they interact at the molecular level. By combining this information with machine learning, digital twins of real patients could be created to test computer-generated drugs. These future medicines would “correct and reprogram” diseased cells back to health.
According to the CURE Asthma initiative, “Naming the ambition and potential to cure asthma marks an essential change in our thinking and expectations.” Prioritising research efforts with adequate funding is crucial to achieving this goal.
