Zhou T, et al. - In this study including asthma patients (n = 910) and healthy controls (n = 881), researchers examined the link between plasma soluble CD14 (sCD14) level and asthma severity in adults. They used commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits to quantify plasma sCD14 level in asthmatics and controls. Patients were classified into intermittent asthma (n = 537), mild (n = 246), moderate (n = 96) and severe (n = 31) persistent asthma patients. Using multivariate logistic regression models, they assessed the links between plasma sCD14 level and asthma severity, lung function parameters as well as asthma symptoms and signs. The observed negative association of plasma sCD14 level with asthma severity implied a protective role for sCD14 in the development of asthma in adults. Findings also suggested the potential utility of plasma sCD14 level as a biomarker in the prediction of asthma severity in adults. At a cut-off point of 0.53, the adjusted area under the curve (AUC) of sCD14 was 0.814, compared with healthy controls, and sensitivity and specificity of 71.0 and 76.8% were displayed for predicting asthma in adults. For predicting intermittent asthma, mild, moderate and severe persistent asthma, the adjusted AUC of sCD14 reached 0.786, 0.847, 0.887 and 0.917, respectively.