Asthma Clinic Overview

People with asthma or childhood asthma find the specialized care they need with the pulmonary medicine specialists of the Asthma Clinic. You'll meet with experts who listen to your concerns, assess your or your child's health, and offer individualized optimal care options. Their goal is to help you or your child keep asthma under control and go about daily activities without limitations.

Asthma can be difficult to diagnose as other conditions can mimic it or occur with it. There are also different types of asthma, which need different treatments. It's important to seek out doctors familiar with every aspect of this condition.

During a visit to the Asthma Clinic on Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota, typically you or your child will undergo testing before you meet the doctor. Tests might include:

  • Blood work, including a full blood count and measurement of a type of white blood cell that is often high in people with asthma and allergies (eosinophils)
  • Pulmonary function testing
  • A nitric oxide test
  • A chest X-ray

At your visit, a doctor who specializes in pulmonary medicine (pulmonologist) will talk with you or your child about your personal and family history of breathing problems, signs and symptoms, and medications. Then you or your child will undergo a physical exam, and the doctor will review the test results with you. Further testing might be needed as well. Your doctor uses these test results, along with the clinical evaluation, to offer treatment options, an asthma action plan and individualized lifestyle counseling.

Each year at Mayo Clinic's campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota, our doctors evaluate and treat more than 25,000 adults and children with asthma. Our asthma specialists use a multispecialty practice model that consistently provides effective, coordinated high-value care. Your doctor might consult experts in allergic diseases; ear, nose and throat medicine (otolaryngology); speech pathology; and other specialties as needed so that you or your child get exactly the right care.

Nationally recognized expertise

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for pulmonology by U.S. News and World Report.

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for respiratory disorders by U.S. News and World Report.

Community engagement

The experts of the Asthma Clinic also provide consistent, accurate and timely asthma-related information for many groups, including the public, the media, allied health staff, health care trainees, doctors (continuing medical education), graduate students and the scientific community.

Research that leads to improved care

Mayo Clinic asthma clinician-scientists and researchers are committed to advancing asthma prevention, diagnosis and treatment through research. The Allergic Diseases Research Laboratory at Mayo Clinic has spent decades researching the immune system and exploring the causes of asthma, with the goal of developing new treatments and eventually finding a cure.

Our researchers' successes include:

  • Using artificial intelligence to identify characteristics of childhood asthma
  • How broncholithiasis masquerades as asthma
  • Asthma in older adults
  • New biological agents in the treatment of severe asthma
  • Asthma in eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis

Our researchers also carry out a wide range of clinical trials focused on treatment of conditions that affect the lungs and breathing.