Meeting highlights from 2019: Updates in asthma, COPD, PAH and more

Healio Pulmonology has you covered on some of the year’s top news from medical meetings. We bring you highlights from the American Thoracic Society International Conference and the CHEST Annual Meeting.

Some of the most-read articles from these meetings, published on Healio, focus on new treatment options for COPD, interstitial lung disease and pulmonary artery hypertension. Read more below.

If you’d like to see more, all highlights from ATS can be found here and highlights from CHEST can be found here.

Initial macitentan, tadalafil combination therapy shows promise for PAH: OPTIMA

Initial combination therapy with macitentan and tadalafil yielded hemodynamic and functional improvements and treatment was well tolerated in adults with newly diagnosed pulmonary arterial hypertension, according to data presented at the CHEST Annual Meeting. Read more

Inhaler formulary changes may worsen asthma control in children

Switching inhaler types due to insurance formulary changes may lead to reduced lung function in children with asthma, researchers reported at the CHEST Annual Meeting.

“Insurance formulary changes have been a major reason why many of our children with asthma who were otherwise stable have been switched from one long-term controller to another. Anecdotally, these changes cause considerable confusion for both families and health care professionals,” Scott G. Bickel, MD, from the University of Louisville School of Medicine, told Healio Pulmonology. “In doing this study, we sought to provide objective data on how these changes influence prescribing patterns and lung function.” Read more

Beta-blocker fails to prevent COPD exacerbations

In patients with moderate to severe COPD without an established indication for beta-blocker use, treatment with metoprolol did not reduce the risk for exacerbations compared with treatment with placebo, according to data presented at the CHEST Annual Meeting. Read more

Four novel sepsis phenotypes identified

A new study presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference identified four clinical phenotypes of sepsis that may allow more precise therapy and improve care of critically ill patients: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. Read more

ASCENT-COPD: Aclidinium shows continued success in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Aclidinium reduces moderate to severe exacerbations without increasing cardiovascular event risk in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, regardless of beta-blocker use or background treatment with long-acting beta-agonists with or without an inhaled corticosteroid, new data presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference suggest. Read more

Nintedanib slows loss of pulmonary function in systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease

Patients with interstitial lung disease associated with systemic sclerosis treated with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor nintedanib exhibited a 44% reduction in the rate of decline of lung function, as measured by forced vital capacity, at 52 weeks compared with placebo, according to data from the SENSCIS trial presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference. Read more