Add-on tiotropium versus step-up inhaled corticosteroid plus long-acting beta-2-agonist in real-world patients with asthma

Comprehensive Observational Study in a Large Cohort of Asthma Patients after Adding LAMA to ICS/LABA

INTRODUCTION

Adding LAMA to LABA/ICS is recommended to improve control in patients with persistent asthma.

METHODS

This observational, retrospective, before-and-after study considered patients diagnosed with asthma who started LABA/ICS + LAMA treatment (triple therapy, TT) between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2018 and had been treated with LABA/ICS (dual therapy, DT) in the year before. Changes in lung function and exacerbation rates, healthcare resource utilization, and healthcare and non-healthcare costs (€2019) were estimated in patients with asthma in clinical practices in Spain. Data from computerized medical records from seven Spanish regions were collected ±1 year of LAMA addition.

RESULTS

4740 patients (64.1 years old [SD: 16.3]) were included. TT reduced the incidence of exacerbations by 16.7% (p < 0.044) and the number of patients with exacerbations by 8.5% (p < 0.001) compared to previous DT. The rate of patients with severe exacerbations requiring systemic corticosteroids and their hospitalization rates significantly decreased by 22.5% and 29.5%. TT significantly improved FEV1, FVC, and FEV1/FVC, saving €571/patient for society. Younger patients with asthma (18-44 years old) and patients with severe asthma (FEV1 < 60%) performed better upon the initiation of TT.

CONCLUSIONS

TT reduced asthma exacerbations, improved lung function and reduced healthcare costs vs. DT, particularly in patients requiring systemic corticosteroids to treat severe exacerbations.

Maintenance Therapy for Children and Adolescents with Asthma: Guidelines and Recommendations from the Emilia-Romagna Asthma (ERA) Study Group

Asthma is the most frequent chronic disease of childhood, affecting up to 20% of children worldwide. The main guidelines on asthma maintenance therapy in pediatrics suggest different approaches and describe different stages of asthma to determine the most appropriate treatment. This project aims to summarize the most recent evidence regarding maintenance therapy for asthma in children and adolescents. A multidisciplinary panel of experts was asked clinical questions regarding the treatment of children and adolescents with asthma. Overall, 10 clinical questions were addressed, and the search strategy included accessing electronic databases and a manual search of gray literature published in the last 25 years. After data extraction and narrative synthesis of results, recommendations were developed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) methodology. Results showed that the choice of medication depends on the severity of the child's asthma, phenotype, age, preference, and individual factors. In addition to medications, the identification of comorbidities and modifiable factors is crucial to obtaining good control. Asthma in children is heterogeneous, and its evolution varies over time. Since most recommendations for asthma management in childhood are extrapolated from clinical studies performed in adults, more clinical trials specifically designed for young children should be conducted.

Open and Closed Triple Inhaler Therapy in Patients with Uncontrolled Asthma

Long-acting muscarinic antagonists (LAMAs) are a class of inhalers that has recently been included as add-on therapy in the GINA guidelines, either in a single inhaler device with inhaled corticosteroids plus long-acting β2-agonists (ICS + LABA) (closed triple inhaler therapy) or in a separate one (open triple inhaler therapy). This review summarizes the existing evidence on the addition of LAMAs in patients with persistently uncontrolled asthma despite ICS + LABA treatment based on clinical efficacy in the reduction of asthma symptoms and exacerbations, the improvement in lung function, and its safety profile.

Optimizing asthma management: Role of long-acting muscarinic antagonists

Patients with asthma who are suboptimally responsive to inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) and long-acting β₂-agonists (LABAs) are frequently exposed to oral corticosteroids and high-dose ICS, which can lead to significant side effects. Long-acting muscarinic antagonists (LAMAs) have demonstrated efficacy and safety in a subset of these patients. This review summarizes the results of key studies using LAMAs in patients with asthma aged 12 years or older. LAMA as an add-on treatment improved lung function and asthma control in patients with uncontrolled asthma across studies. The efficacy of LAMAs as an add-on to ICS was superior to that of placebo and ICS dose escalation and comparable with that of LABAs. LAMA plus ICS plus LABA provided modest improvements in bronchodilation and increased the time to first severe exacerbation versus ICS plus LABA. Single-inhaler triple therapy was associated with decreased health care resource utilization and improved cost-effectiveness versus multiple inhalers. LAMAs were generally well tolerated; asthma exacerbations, bronchitis, and nasopharyngitis were common adverse events with LAMA in combination with ICS alone or ICS plus LABA. Thus, the overall evidence presented in this review supports the use of add-on LAMA treatment as a reasonable option in patients with asthma uncontrolled with ICS plus LABA or ICS alone.

The new era of add-on asthma treatments: where do we stand?

Globally, a small proportion (5–12%) of asthma patients are estimated to have severe disease. However, severe asthma accounts for disproportionately high healthcare resource utilization. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) management committee recommends treating patients with asthma with inhaled corticosteroids plus long-acting β₂-agonists and, when needed, adding a long-acting muscarinic receptor antagonist or biologic agent. Five biologics, targeting different effectors in the type 2 inflammatory pathway, are approved for asthma treatment. However, biologics have not been compared against each other or add-on inhaled therapies in head-to-head clinical trials. As a result, their positioning versus that of current and anticipated small-molecule strategies is largely unknown. Furthermore, with the emergence of biomarkers for predicting response to biologics, a more personalized treatment approach—currently lacking with inhaled therapies—may be possible. To gain perspective, we reviewed recent advances in asthma pathophysiology, phenotypes, and biomarkers; the place of biologics in the management and personalized treatment of severe asthma; and the future of biologics and small-molecule drugs. We propose an algorithm for the stepwise treatment of severe asthma based on recommendations in the GINA strategy document that accounts for the broad range of phenotypes targeted by inhaled therapies and the specificity of biologics. In the future, both biologics and small molecules will continue to play key roles in the individualized treatment of severe asthma. However, as targeted therapies, their application will continue to be focused on patients with certain phenotypes who meet the specific criteria for use as identified in pivotal clinical trials.

Applying personalized medicine to adult severe asthma

Background: Severe asthma is a heterogeneous disease that consists of various phenotypes driven by different pathways. Associated with significant morbidity, an important negative impact on the quality of life of patients, and increased health care costs, severe asthma represents a challenge for the clinician. With the introduction of various antibodies that target type 2 inflammation (T2) pathways, severe asthma therapy is gradually moving to a personalized medicine approach. Objective: The purpose of this review was to emphasize the important role of personalized medicine in adult severe asthma management. Methods: An extensive research was conducted in medical literature data bases by applying terms such as "severe asthma" associated with "structured approach," "comorbidities," "biomarkers," "phenotypes/endotypes," and "biologic therapies." Results: The management of severe asthma starts with a structured approach to confirm the diagnosis, assess the adherence to medications and identify confounding factors and comorbidities. The definition of phenotypes or endotypes (phenotypes defined by mechanisms and identified through biomarkers) is an important step toward the use of personalized medicine in asthma. Severe allergic and nonallergic eosinophilic asthma are two defined T2 phenotypes for which there are efficacious targeted biologic therapies currently available. Non-T2 phenotype remains to be characterized, and less efficient target therapy exists. Conclusion: Despite important progress in applying personalized medicine to severe asthma, especially in T2 inflammatory phenotypes, future research is needed to find valid biomarkers predictive for the response to available biologic therapies to develop more effective therapies in non-T2 phenotype.

Small Airway Disease in Pediatric Asthma: the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to Remediate. A Review and Commentary

Asthma affects all portions of the airways. Small airways, however, comprise a substantial component of the conducting lung air flow. In asthma, inflammatory processes can affect the whole respiratory tract, from central to peripheral/small airways. The emphasis in adult and pediatric respiratory disease clinics is to focus on large airway obstruction and reversibility. This information, although valuable, underemphasizes a large portion of the conduction airway of asthmatics. Standard descriptions of asthma management focus on a multiple medication approaches. We particularly focused on the management of asthma in the international guidelines for the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA). Overall, however, minimal attention is placed on the small airway pool in asthma medical management. We took the opportunity to thoroughly review and present specific data from the adult asthma literature which supported the concept that small airway abnormalities may play a role in the pathogenesis and clinical expression of asthma. Based on the conclusions of the adult asthma literature, we here present a thorough review of the literature as it relates to small airway disease in children with asthma. We used, collectively, individual data sources of data to expand the information available from standard diagnostic techniques, especially spirometry, in the evaluation of small airway disease. As the pharmacological approaches to moderate to severe asthma are advancing rapidly into the realm of biologics, we sought to present potential pharmacological options for small airway dysfunction in pediatrics prior to biological modifier intervention.