A monthly injection could allow people with severe asthma to stop taking daily steroid tablets, a clinical trial has found. More than 260 million people are thought to have asthma worldwide. While most can control their asthma with inhalers, those with the most severe asthma often take daily doses of oral corticosteroids, which are linked to serious health conditions such as osteoporosis, diabetes and increased vulnerability to infections.
An international clinical trial led by King's College London found that participants who received injections of tezepelumab every four weeks were able to reduce or even stop taking their steroids entirely with no ill effects. Tezepelumab, also known as Tezspire and made by AstraZeneca, binds to and blocks a protein associated with airway inflammation.
The Wayfinder trial involved just under 300 adults with severe, uncontrolled asthma from 11 countries, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Mexico and Spain. After one year of treatment, more than half of the participants had stopped taking their steroid medication altogether without their asthma flaring up, while nearly 90% had reduced their steroid use to a low dose. A third had stopped taking steroids after six months.
The findings, published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine and presented at the British Thoracic Society winter meeting, also showed that tezepelumab significantly improved asthma symptoms, lung function and overall quality of life. During the study, two-thirds of patients did not have any asthma attacks.
Lead author Prof David Jackson, a respiratory medicine expert at King's College London, said: 'As tezepelumab also suppresses allergy-related symptoms and improves chronic rhinosinusitis, the results are particularly exciting for patients with severe asthma who suffer with both upper and lower airway symptoms.' Dr Samantha Walker of Asthma + Lung UK called it 'an incredibly encouraging development' that could transform lives.
