The role of small airways in obstructive airway diseases

Schematic diagram of the recently described concept of “systems medicine” [93], which includes genetic characterisation, cell biology and physiology, imaging and analysis of clinical data and is a consistent, novel and interesting approach to unravel novel mechanisms in chronic respiratory disease (e.g. asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Collection of these large amounts of data in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies and analysis using unbiased mathematical models may generate novel and unintuitive hypotheses.