Patients with asthma can have varying characteristics, and therefore they need different treatments. Knowing asthma phenotypes can aid practice nurses to better understand how to best manage their patients' condition, as Aleksandra Gawlik-Lipinski describes Asthma is characterised by the presence of a wheeze, a cough, breathlessness, tightness in the chest and various levels of airway obstruction ( Chapman et al, 2014 , British Thoracic Society and Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network, 2016 ). There is diversity among asthma patients and it was in the final decade of twentieth century that asthma was categorised into phenotypes ( Wenzel, 2012a ). A phenotype is an observable manifestation of the interaction between an individual's genotype and their environment ( Marieb and Hoehn, 2012 ). Traditionally, phenotypes are based on clinical, molecular and individual characteristics, designed to recognise different treatment requirements among asthma patients and deliver targeted therapy ( Chung et al, 2014 ). Apart from inhaled corticosteroids, eosinophilic, early- and late-onset asthma phenotypes benefit from leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) and monoclonal anti-immunoglobin E therapy; obesity-related, non-eosinophilic phenotype from weight management; and allergic bronchopulmonary mycoses from antifungal treatment ( Haldar et al, 2008 ; Moore et al, 2010 ; Wenzel, 2012b ). The treatments of early-onset, non-eosinophilic phenotype with LTRAs ( Bacci et al, 2006 ; Paggiaro and Bacci, 2011 ) and the neutrophilic phenotype solely with macrolide antibiotics ( Wenzel, 2012b ) continue to be debated.