Reslizumab Continually Reduces Emergent Asthma Care at 1 Year

Michael Wechsler, MD

A new subgroup analysis showed patients with severe, eosinophilic asthma administered reslizumab (Cinqair) over 12 months had meaningful improvement in outcomes including pulmonary function and disease-related healthcare resource use.

The real-world findings, planned for presentation at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2020 International Conference this year, showed patients maintained and even sometimes improved in outcomes such as forced expiratory volume over 1 second (FEV₁) and Asthma Control Test (ACT) scores recorded at 6 months—indicating the monoclonal antibody may have continued long-term benefit in patients.

Since the therapy was approved for patients with severe eosinophilic asthma by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 4 years ago, investigators have been looking to expand on its pivotal phase 3 findings. Namely, lead author Michael Wechsler, MD, of National Jewish Health, said, clinicians wanted real-world context of the biologic therapy.

“We demonstrated that in the real world—outside the clinical trials—reslizumab is associated with significant clinical and quality-of-life improvements that could be generalizable to patients who receive this drug in the United State,” he told HCPLive®.

Indeed, 12-month patients reported lesser rates of asthma-related inpatient admissions (10.4% vs 40.3%), emergency room visits (38.8% vs 71.6%), and fewer mean asthma-related days hospitalized (0.38 vs 2.05; P <.001 for all) than patients treated at 6 months.

In an interview with HCPLive regarding the findings, Wechsler discussed the necessity of furthering real-world assessment of the interleukin 5 (IL-5) inhibitor, as well as how clinicians can interpret these positive findings for patients with severe eosinophilic asthma.

“You know, 85-86% of patients seem to do quite well with this therapy,” he explained.

The study, “Real-World Evidence of Improved Patient Outcomes with Reslizumab in Adults with Severe Eosinophilic Asthma: A Subgroup Analysis of Patients Receiving Reslizumab for More Than 12 Months,” was published online by ATS.