Tezepelumab use for 12 months lowers number of asthma exacerbations

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Patients experienced fewer asthma exacerbations after taking tezepelumab for 12 months compared with the 12 months prior to treatment, according to study results.

These data were presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting.

“Tezepelumab, a human monoclonal antibody, blocks thymic stromal lymphopoietin,” Sameer K. Mathur, MD, PhD, associate professor in the division of allergy, pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and colleagues wrote. “In the PATHWAY and NAVIGATOR studies, tezepelumab reduced asthma exacerbations versus placebo in patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma, irrespective of baseline blood eosinophil count, allergic status and maintenance oral corticosteroid use.”

In a post-hoc pooled analysis of the NAVIGATOR and PATHWAY studies, Mathur and colleagues assessed 1,334 patients, ranging in age from 12 to 80 years, to compare their incidence of asthma exacerbations 12 months before vs. 12 months after starting tezepelumab (Tezspire; Amgen, AstraZeneca), according to the study abstract.

As Healio previously reported, the NAVIGATOR study showed that a greater proportion of patients taking tezepelumab for severe, uncontrolled asthma achieved on-treatment clinical response than those taking placebo.

The PATHWAY study also demonstrated that tezepelumab helped patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma by reducing asthma exacerbations and inflammation.

Researchers measured the mean number of asthma exacerbations before treatment and the unadjusted rate of asthma exacerbations per patient-year after treatment for each time period in the overall pooled population, as well as in subgroups that accounted for baseline blood eosinophil count, perennial allergic status and maintenance oral corticosteroid use.

Of the total cohort, 665 patients received 210 mg of tezepelumab and 669 received placebo every 4 weeks for up to 1 year.

In all groups based on baseline blood eosinophil count and perennial allergic status, except for the maintenance oral corticosteroid use subgroup, the mean number of exacerbations in the 12 months prior to starting treatment was comparable between those who went on to receive tezepelumab or placebo, according to the abstract.

However, researchers found that after taking tezepelumab for 12 months, the mean number of exacerbations patients experienced decreased from 2.7 exacerbations to 0.7 exacerbations.

Overall, patients receiving tezepelumab also had a lower rate of exacerbations than those in the placebo group (0.7 vs. 1.8 per patient-year) after 12 months. This finding also persisted across the subgroups.

“Patients experienced fewer exacerbations after initiating tezepelumab treatment compared with the 12 months before treatment and compared with the placebo group,” Mathur and colleagues wrote.