Twin studies: Mepolizumab better alternative for severe asthma
POSTED March 5, 2009 - 13:35 | POSTED BY Shikha Patial
Last edited by Shikha Patial on March 5, 2009 - 14:00
London, March 5: GlaxoSmithKline's tentative drug mepolizumab has shown promising results in checking severe asthma with a condition called eosinophilia.
About 2-4 percent of all asthmatic patients suffer from the most exacerbated level of the disease, and about 500,000 patients in United Kingdom report of the condition. Most of these patients are dependent on steroids that involve serious side effects.
Mepolizumab has proved successful in helping patients reduce the use of steroids and prevent the symptoms from exacerbating.
Severe asthma has been associated with the jump in the number of white blood cells called eosinophils. The increased eosinophils are thought to result in persistent airway inflammation, thus worsening the condition.
A couple of recent small studies have showed that mepolizumab reduced the number of eosinophils to normal, thus stabilizing the symptoms.
A Canadian study, which was six months long, involved 20 steroid prednisone-dependent patients. These patients had been taking prednisone for an average of nine years. The patients were divided into mepolizumab group and placebo group respectively, and the drugs were given in intravenous doses to the patients.
Nine patients, who were on mepolizumab, were soon able to cut down on their prednisone use, while the symptoms were further exacerbated in 11 patients who were given placebo.
Another study conducted by U.K. researchers studied 61 severe asthmatic patients. Some patients were put on mepolizumab and the rest on placebo for a year. Mepolizumab-taking patients reported fewer asthma exacerbations than those on placebo. Mepolizumab-taking patients had normal number of eosinophils.
Hence, both the studies saw that mepolizumab can be a better alternative for managing severe asthma than placebo or steroids that implicate risks of weight gain and bone loss.
“The possible benefits that mepolizumab could bring to the half a million people with severe asthma in the UK are incredibly exciting,” said Professor Ian Pavord, the lead author of the U.K. study.
He asserted that mepolizumab could cut the odds of severe asthma by up to 50 percent.
Dr. Paul O'Byrne, the senior author of the Canadian study, said, “we now have a likely new treatment modality that will improve outcomes and reduce exacerbations in severe prednisone-dependent asthma, and this is not a small population.”
