In our June journal club we looked at Tezepelumab in Adults and Adolescents with Severe, Uncontrolled Asthma in the New England Journal of medicine. Here are Dr. Olga’s main takeaways.

The number of monoclonal antibodies (or so-called biological therapy drugs) for treatment of asthma are expanding giving new options for severe asthma. At this time there are 5 biologics approved for treatment of asthma in Alberta, but there are even more drugs under development.

This paper attracted my attention as it reported the treatment effects of Tezepelumab, which is a novel biologic agent almost ready for clinical use. Tezepelumab is a human monoclonal antibody that blocks thymic stromal lymphopoietin, an epithelial cell-derived cytokine implicated in the pathogenesis of asthma.  Tezepelumab was effective in patients with severe uncontrolled asthma. It led to improved quality of life, asthma control and lung function, reduced number of asthma exacerbations.

Most importantly Tezepelumab gave hope to the subset of patients with severe uncontrolled asthma, who otherwise would not meet criteria for existing biological therapy. This phase 3 multicenter randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study proved it to be effective and safe. It is worth reading about!

For the full article, follow the link: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034975