United States: Geoffrey Pointing, 77, from England, says it’s hard to explain how scary an asthma or COPD flare-up feels because it’s so hard to breathe. But a new clinical trial shows that an existing injectable drug could help reduce these flare-ups, making them less frightening. The drug, which is already approved for asthma, could replace steroids to treat both asthma and COPD flare-ups.
The immunological treatment called Benralizabam which is a monoclonal antibody fared better than steroids in alleviating such symptoms like coughing, wheezing, breathlessness or hacking of thick phlegm, trials conducted and revealed in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine have showed.
As reported by the HealthDay, in patients receiving benralizumab four times fewer reported caused by an asthma/COPD exacerbation after the treatment period of three months compared to those in the prednisolone group.
‘This could be a game-changer for people with asthma and COPD,’ said lead researcher Dr. Mona Bafadhel, chair of respiratory medicine for King’s College London.
“Treatment for asthma and COPD exacerbations have not changed in fifty years despite causing 3.8 million deaths worldwide a year combined,” Bafadhel, proclaimed in the press release. Benralizumab is a known drug to cure severe asthma and hence it is relatively safe to be used in the treatment of COVID-19.
We’ve given the drug in a different manner; that is at the time of an exacerbation in order to prove that the efficacy of the drug is greater than that of steroid tablets which is the only available treatment.
Pointing who was among the participants of the trial said of the drug: “It is fantastic.”
“I did not feel the side effects like I used to experience when I took steroid tablets,” he said. “I normally spend my first night on steroids tossing and turning but with the first day of the study, I was able to sleep like a baby and I was fine to go on with my life as normal.”
Benralizumab focuses on certain versions of white blood cells known as eosinophils which contributes to inflammation of the lungs.
Though the United States Food and Drug Administration endorsed the drug in 2017 for use in severe asthma, this trial sought to determine the efficacy of the drug in handling asthma and COPD exacerbations.
The severe chronic inflammation of COPD is responsible for 30% of acute exacerbations of the disease as well as nearly half of asthma exacerbations, according to the authors. During these episodes, quantities of the white blood cells rise up to the lungs and thus leading to wheezing, coughing, chest constriction.