A new treatment is available for patients with severe asthma that is not controlled despite taking background therapy.
The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) has in fact approved the reimbursement of the monoclonal antibody tezepelumab.
The drug is indicated as adjunctive maintenance therapy in patients aged 12 years and older with the disease and who are not adequately controlled despite the use of high-dose inhaled corticosteroids, in addition to another drug for maintenance treatment .
In Italy there are 3 million people affected by asthma;
10% of them develop severe uncontrolled asthma, that is, "that form of asthma which, despite the underlying treatment, remains uncontrolled both in terms of frequency and severity of symptoms", explains Giorgio Walter Canonica, professor and senior consultant of the Center for Personalized Medicine Asthma and Allergies of Humanitas University and Clinical and Research Institute Irccs Milan.
Until now, patients had "biological options available that aim to block individual elements of the complex immuno-inflammatory cascade responsible for the symptoms and clinical manifestations of asthma", adds Paola Rogliani, director of the Respiratory Diseases Unit at the Tor Vergata Polyclinic and ordinary at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
However, "these treatments leave some mediators active which can still cause exacerbations and compromise disease control. Tezepelumab acts directly on the epithelial damage and therefore on the signal triggering the inflammatory cascade, allowing the simultaneous modulation of various inflammatory mediators involved in asthma" , he adds.
“Consequently, the Italian approval of tezepelumab represents an important advance, offering a significant treatment opportunity for patients affected by this disease.”
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