New Asthma Drug can Cut Hospital Admissions by Half: Study
A new treatment for asthma can cut emergency hospital visits by half by suppressing inflammation in the lungs, a study has found.
The drug for people with severe asthma may allow patients to reduce their dependence on traditional steroid inhalers, experts said.
The research conducted by a team at Leicester University, the largest of its kind in severe asthma, found the treatment could reduce severe asthma attacks, A&E visits and admissions to hospital by 50 per cent compared with a dummy drug.
It could be a new treatment for around one third of asthma patients with a particular form of the disease.There are around 5.4m people in Britain with asthma, including 1.1m children. It is the most common long-term medical condition.
Olympic gold medal winning cyclists Bradley Wiggins and Laura Trott, bronze medallist Rebecca Adlington and long jump champion Greg Rutherford, have asthma.
Prof Ian Pavord from University Hospitals of Leicester NHS in the UK who led the research, said:"Mepolizumab is potentially an important advance because it seems to be a safe and effective treatment option for patients with eosinophilic asthma that is associated with frequent flare-ups, and may reduce the need for conventional treatment with oral corticosteroids that can have serious side effects including osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and impaired growth in children"
Eosinophilic asthma occurs when cells called eosinophils cause inflammation of airways in the lungs.
Mepolizumab, which is based on naturally occurring antibodies that have been altered in the lab, works by blocking the production of eosinophils.
In the study 621 severe asthmatics with signs of eosinophilic inflammation were randomly assigned one of three doses of mepolizumab, 75 mg, 250mg, or 750mg, or a dummy drug on a monthly basis for a year.
The treatment was given into the vein.
The study, funded by GlaxoSmithKline, was published in The Lancet medical journal.
In a commentary article, Profs Simone Hashimoto and Elisabeth Bel from the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands said: "These effects are very promising and give hope to many patients for whom no effective drugs are available without significant adverse effects.
"The next step will be to assess the steroid-sparing effects of mepolizumab in a large population of patients who are dependent on oral corticosteroids ... If these effects are confirmed, the most severely affected patients with asthma would benefit greatly."
It is estimated that around three quarters of all hospital admissions for asthma can be prevented along with nine in ten deaths.
Mepolizumab is not yet licensed in Britain.
Rebecca Smith - telegraph.co.uk
