The research team of Matthew A. Rank, M.D., studies diseases of airway inflammation with a focus on asthma and sinusitis. The goal of Dr. Rank's research is to improve care for these conditions with a focus on management decisions. Dr. Rank and his colleagues use several research methods, including secondary database analysis, registries, survey research, knowledge synthesis, qualitative research, implementation science and translational efforts, in collaboration with basic scientist partnerships.

Focus areas

• Asthma management decisions. Dr. Rank investigates how patients make decisions about asthma management with a specific interest in reducing or stopping chronic asthma medications and creates predictive risk models to assist patients and their health care team.
• Implementation of best asthma practices. Dr. Rank seeks to identify barriers to best practices and design solutions to allow for implementation of best practices in multiple practice settings, including a focus on demonstration projects aimed at testing both proven and novel models of care.
• Translational asthma research. Dr. Rank collaborates with basic science laboratories to clarify the role of novel biomarkers in asthma management using novel, noninvasive and patient-centered approaches to help predict responses to specific treatments, and to adjust ongoing treatments, including reducing or stopping treatment when it is most likely safe to do so.
• Translational chronic sinusitis research. Dr. Rank's research seeks to better understand the different types of chronic sinusitis. Using multiple methods, including the construction of a prospective database rich in clinical information coupled with conventional and novel measurements of airway inflammation pathways, Dr. Rank seeks to identify, test and confirm the best management options for patients with different types of chronic sinusitis.

Significance to patient care

Dr. Rank's research helps patients and health care teams make decisions about how to manage chronic airway diseases. For example, many patients can safely reduce their chronic asthma medications after an extended period of disease stability, and Dr. Rank's team has validated predictive models to help determine who is best suited for this approach. The findings from Dr. Rank's research include safe outcomes and financial savings for targeted patients who are able to reduce their asthma medications. This research also considers chronic airway disease from a systems perspective and impacts delivery system design choices.