Landmark study explores therapy for acute asthma exacerbations

A new study, published in The Lancet has investigated the use of high-tech biologic therapy Benralizumab in treating acute asthma exacerbations. IT works by targeting white blood cells that cause inflammation.

Already used in regular low doses to treat severe asthma, researchers have now tested its efficacy in tackling asthma attacks using a single high-dose injection. Early studies suggest this new use of the drug cuts the need for further treatment by 30%. 

The study represents a major breakthrough after 50 years without significant treatment advances, according to the Asthma Society of Ireland.

Currently the standard treatment for asthma exacerbations are steroid tablets, which the Asthma Society’s recent campaign highlighted, are associated with a heightened risk of mood disorders, diabetes, glaucoma and osteoporosis, among other possible side effects. While larger trials are still needed, this therapy offers hope for more effective, safer treatments for millions of patients worldwide. 

“This landmark study gives us renewed hope that as asthma and COPD specialists, we may very soon to able to offer a large subgroup of asthma patients a new alternative to traditional steroid tablets in the treatment of serious and life-threatening forms of asthma attacks who have easy-to-detect evidence of eosinophilic flare-ups of their disease. A simple blood test in the emergency department could see if this drug is the best option for them. Larger confirmatory studies and careful cost-benefit analyses are awaited but there is real hope that this is a game-changer for how we treat eosinophil asthma and eosinophilic COPD flare-ups.” Dr Marcus Butler, Medical Director, Asthma Society of Ireland 

This study comes the Asthma Society of Ireland published a new report, Towards Optimal Severe Asthma Care. The report highlights the challenges severe asthma poses to patients and healthcare system in Ireland.

One of the key recommendations in the report is an increase in the allocated funding for biologic treatments, such as benralizumab. 

Approximately 450,000 people in Ireland currently have asthma, making asthma the most common chronic respiratory disease in the country. It is estimated that between 3% and 10% of that patient population has severe asthma. However, unlike many other countries, Ireland does not have a national registry of severe asthma patients, which makes it difficult to accurately assess the true number of patients.

Prof Marcus Butler, Consultant Respiratory Physician at St Vincent’s Hospital said: “We can currently only estimate the number of people in Ireland with severe asthma based on prevalence rates in other jurisdictions and on the numbers of people we treat in specialist clinics. This represents a significant challenge – it’s hard to make the best policy, budgetary or service decisions if we don’t know the full extent of the situation. A severe asthma registry could provide accurate, reliable and more up-to-date information about the treated and not-yet-treated patient population and the disease. Data like this would facilitate better research, better health service planning and management and, crucially, better treatment and care for people with different forms of severe asthma”.