Ghebre MA, Pang PH, Desai D, et al. - Among 102 adults and 34 children with asthma, comparisons were performed by researchers for sputum and serum inflammatory profiles in moderate-to-severe asthma during stable disease and exacerbation events. At baseline, 3, 6, and 12-month follow-up visits, they evaluated adults. They evaluated 37 individuals at onset of severe exacerbation. They also measured 40 sputum mediators and 43 serum mediators. In order to detect mediators that discriminate between stable disease and exacerbation events, they developed receiver-operator characteristic curves. Among children, they sought validation for the strongest differentiating sputum mediators in the adults. Findings revealed a link between severe asthma exacerbations and increased pro-inflammatory and Type 1 immune mediators. The strongest discriminators of an exacerbation were sputum TNF-R2 and IL-6R in adults. These discriminators were validated in children.