PARS app identifies kids with low-to-moderate risk of asthma
Cincinnati Children’s has released a new tool in the arsenal against asthma. The tool is called the Pediatric Asthma Risk Score (PARS), and it improves upon the Asthma Predictive Index (API) and the modified API (mAPI), which have been the gold standard of care for the last 20 years. The lead author of the study that developed PARS is Jocelyn Biagini Myers, PhD, associate professor, Asthma Research.
“While both API and PARS can predict asthma in children who are at very high risk, PARS picks up kids in the moderate risk range that are missed by API,” said Gurjit Khurana Hershey, MD, PhD, director, Asthma Research, and senior author of the study. “These children with moderate or lower risk may be more amenable to prevention strategies.”
The PARS tool is an app that can be downloaded for free from the iPhone App Store and Google Play (just search for “PARS”). There is also a web application at https://pars.research.cchmc.org. It consists of a series of brief “yes or no” questions—Does one of the child’s parents have asthma? Does the child have wheezing without a cold? Is the child allergic to two or more things? Does the child have eczema? Is the child African-American? The app tallies the answers and comes up with a percentage of risk the child has of developing asthma by age 7.
Calculating PARS does not require blood tests and can be easily implemented in an office setting, according to Khurana Hershey. “It is very exciting to think that PARS can give parents and families a clear answer regarding their child’s risk and may be able to identify kids in whom we can really change the outcome,” she said.
Khurana Hershey has received positive feedback from physicians who are using the PARS app.
“The PARS has been a wonderful tool to use in teaching about future asthma risk for both trainees and families,” said Yemisi Jones, MD, Hospital Medicine. “It is so easy to use and quick enough to complete at the point-of-care. I would definitely recommend it to other providers as an additional piece of information that can help guide discussions with families, who often want to know if their child will develop asthma.”
An article about PARS is featured on the American Academy of Asthma Allergy and Immunology (AAAAI) website and will be published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology soon.
Asthma affects 25.7 million people in the U.S., including 7 million children, and costs more than $5 billion to treat.
