Professor (Dr) David Price has been fighting the scourge of respiratory diseases throughout his life and is considered one of the leading authorities on the subject. Dr Price is affiliated to several organizations that conduct cutting-edge research in the field of respiratory diseases, including the Department of General Practice, University of Adelaide, Australia (as an affiliate associate professor); the University of Aberdeen (as professor of primary care respiratory medicine); and the International Primary Care Respiratory Group (as chairman of the research committee). He also fuctions as the director of firms such as Optimum Patient Care and Researchin Real Life. Dr Price, in an interview with BioSpectrum, speaks about his present projects and the scenario of respiratory diseases in Asia. Excerpts from the interview:

Tell us about the various research activities associated with respiratory diseases, which are presently on in the various institutes that you are associated with.

We are doing research into treatment and disease management for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We particularly specialise in more "real-life" research to understand how well drugs and other interventions work in real-life.

What makes respiratory diseases so difficult to tackle?

Several factors make respiratory diseases difficult to tackle. Asthma and COPD are not diseases as such but syndromes with variable phenotypes. Also, asthma is a variable disease making it hard to fix treatment. Patients respond differently to different treatments and adherence seems to be a major problem. Furthermore, many factors affect disease control, including inhaler technique and type, co-morbid diseases - such as rhinitis, smoking, unusual phenotypes.