Asthma exacerbations may be halved in patients at high risk of serious asthma-related morbidity and mortality by using omalizumab.

This was the finding of a meta-analysis of three randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled trials involving 1412 patients with moderate or severe allergic asthma. All patients in the study required daily inhaled steroids.

The anti-immunoglobulin E antibody, omalizumab was given, as add-on therapy, subcutaneously every two or four weeks at a total four-weekly dose of at least 0.016mg/kg/IgE. All studies had a steroid-stable phase, followed by a steroid-reduction phase, and then two-studies had an extension phase.

Professor Stephen Holgate, a staff professor at the University of Southampton School of Medicine, said, "Overall, the number of patients with at least one significant asthma exacerbation episode during the steroid-stable phase was reduced from 35 percent with placebo to 18 percent with omalizumab".

Mean significant asthma exacerbation episodes were 1.56 per patient-year for the placebo group and 0.69 per patient-year for the omalizumab group. This represented a 56 percent reduction with omalizumab (P=0.007).

לכתבה המלאה