According to a study of a new drug for bronchial asthma, conducted in America, the more exacerbations of the disease patients experience, the more responsive they are to the developed drug. There is a high increase in benefit in patients with higher exacerbation rates in the previous year, the researchers reported.
A new human monoclonal antibody developed that inhibits the actions of both interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-13 reduces asthma exacerbations in patients with moderate to severe asthma and elevated eosinophil levels. In a study of patients with uncontrolled asthma who used medium or high doses of inhaled corticosteroids and a long-acting beta-agonist, this drug was shown to be effective in patients with eosinophils above three hundred cells/ µl and below.
When using a new drug, there is always the question of whether it will really work for the patients who need it most. All patients included in the second phase of the study experienced at least one exacerbation in the previous year. They were randomly assigned to three groups, the first of which received two hundred milligrams of the drug, the second received three hundred, the third received a placebo. Four hundred and sixty-five patients had at least one exacerbation, two hundred twenty-seven of them two had at least three exacerbations, and sixty-two had at least four. When the information was processed, it turned out that the higher the level of exacerbation was before treatment, the higher it was later. This shows that there is a phenotype of asthma severity that appears to be stable for two years, the authors say. However, the benefit of the drug was greatest in patients who experienced the most pre-treatment exacerbations.