New therapy effective against asthma
ST. LOUIS – It doesn’t feel as if Karen Fairbanks even has asthma any more, she says.
Gone are the three different inhalers, the nasal sprays and all the pills the teacher used to keep her allergic asthma in check. The medicines have been reduced to a daily inhaler and a once-a-month shot.
Fairbanks, 55, of Clayton, Mo., was in a study by Washington University and St. Louis University researchers on behalf of drug maker Novartis Pharmaceuticals to test a new therapy against poorly controlled asthma.
Dr. Phillip Korenblat, a professor of medicine at Washington University, presented the results of the study Monday at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego.
The study found that a new medication can reduce emergency room visits and oral steroid use among people with moderate to severe allergic asthma.
An estimated 20 million Americans suffer from asthma, and about half of those cases are caused by allergies.
About 5 percent of people with asthma have severe disease that requires high doses of inhaled steroids and medicines. Despite the medications and often extreme measures to avoid the things that trigger attacks, people with the severe form of asthma often end up in the emergency room or require oral steroid treatment, Korenblat said.
“I was coughing all the time from sinus stuff and all the phlegm. Just coughing and coughing,” Fairbanks said.
The culprit producing Fairbanks’ problems is a chemical called immunoglobulin E, or IgE. The molecules, a type of antibody, probably originally protected people from parasites, Korenblat said. But in people with allergies, IgE antibodies mistake harmless things for dangerous invaders.
The IgE molecules attach themselves to inflammatory cells, called mast cells, causing the cells to release chemicals, such as histamine, that trigger inflammation, mucus production, narrowing of airways in the lungs and other allergy and asthma symptoms.
Most current asthma medicines treat the symptoms of allergies and asthma, but Novartis developed a drug called omalizumab or Xolair, a monoclonal antibody that combats the cause of the symptoms. Monoclonal antibodies are immune-system chemicals that latch on to one specific type of protein – in the case of allergic asthma, to IgE.
Many monoclonal antibodies are approved for use or testing for treatment of cancer, psoriasis and other diseases, said Dr. James Wedner, of the Washington University School of Medicine. They aren’t effective for every condition, “but when they work, they work extremely well,” he said.