Common drug could be ‘game-changer’ for asthma, COPD patients – study

Scientists in the UK have found a new, more effective way to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in what they say is the first big breakthrough to manage the respiratory conditions in 50 years.

Typically, COPD patients take a five-day course of steroids to help them manage eosinophilic exacerbations, a type of symptom flare-up which accounts for about half of asthma attacks and 30 per cent of COPD attacks, and causes wheezing, coughing, and chest tightness.

Steroids help alleviate symptoms by reducing inflammation in the lungs, but they do not work for all patients and can have long-term side effects, such as high blood pressure and osteoporosis.

The new results, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal, found that giving patients an injection of benralizumab – a commonly available monoclonal antibody that targets white blood cells to reduce inflammation and is already used in some cases to treat severe asthma – is more effective at curbing symptoms than steroid tablets.

It also reduces the need for additional treatment by 30 per cent, researchers found.

“This could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD,” Dr Mona Bafadhel, the study’s lead investigator and chair of respiratory medicine at King’s College London, said in a statement.

Estimates show that nearly 36.6 million Europeans have COPD, and nearly 10 million under age 45 have asthma.

The conditions can have a significant impact on patients’ quality of life and limit their life expectancies, particularly for older people with both conditions.

“We need to provide these patients with life-saving options before their time runs out,” said Dr Sanjay Ramakrishnan, one of the study’s authors and a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia, adding that current treatments are “stuck in the 20th century”.

How did the trial work?

For the trial, scientists divided people at high risk of an asthma or COPD attack into three groups: one got benralizumab, one got steroids, and one got both treatments.

Twenty-eight days later, patients who got benralizumab had better respiratory outcomes, and at 90 days, 74 per cent of those who took steroids needed to see a doctor because the treatment hadn’t worked, compared with 45 per cent of those who got a benralizumab jab.

The results indicate a single dose of benralizumab could be used in emergencies to reduce the likelihood that COPD and asthma patients will need to return to the hospital, researchers said.

“We hope these pivotal studies will change how asthma and COPD exacerbations are treated for the future, ultimately improving the health for over a billion people living with asthma and COPD across the world,” Bafadhel said.

The trial was supported by the drugmaker AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.