Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Oct:58:101830.
doi: 10.1016/j.pupt.2019.101830. Epub 2019 Jul 22.

Real-life rapidity of benralizumab effects in patients with severe allergic eosinophilic asthma: Assessment of blood eosinophils, symptom control, lung function and oral corticosteroid intake after the first drug dose

Corrado Pelaia  1 , Maria Teresa Busceti  1 , Alessandro Vatrella  2 , Giuseppe Francesco Rago  1 , Claudia Crimi  3 , Rosa Terracciano  4 , Girolamo Pelaia  5
Affiliations

Real-life rapidity of benralizumab effects in patients with severe allergic eosinophilic asthma: Assessment of blood eosinophils, symptom control, lung function and oral corticosteroid intake after the first drug dose

Corrado Pelaia et al. Pulm Pharmacol Ther. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Benralizumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody which binds to the α subunit of the interleukin-5 (IL-5) receptor and to the FcγRIIIa receptor expressed by natural killer cells, thus suppressing the pro-eosinophil actions of IL-5 and triggering eosinophil apoptosis via the very effective mechanism of antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC). Because of its recent approval and introduction in clinical practice for the add-on biological therapy of severe eosinophilic asthma, real-life investigations are still lacking. In this regard, our present real-life study refers to 13 patients with severe allergic eosinophilic asthma, currently under treatment with benralizumab at the Respiratory Unit of "Magna Græcia" University Hospital located in Catanzaro, Italy. Already 4 weeks after the first subcutaneous injection of benralizumab at the dosage of 30 mg, blood eosinophil count rapidly dropped down from 814.7 ± 292.3 cells/μL to 51.3 ± 97.5 cells/μL (p < 0.0001). This relevant hematologic change was associated with quick and significant increases in asthma control test (ACT) score (from 15.31 ± 2.78 to 21.15 ± 3.58; p < 0.0001), pre-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) (from 1441 ± 757.9 mL to 1887 ± 837.3 mL; p < 0.001), and morning peak expiratory flow (PEF) (from 4.21 ± 2.20 to 5.33 ± 1.99 L/sec; p < 0.01). Furthermore, the marked improvement in global health status experienced by our patients allowed them to progressively lower and then completely interrupt, within 4 weeks, their daily intake of oral corticosteroids (OCS), which thereby fell from 15.58 ± 8.30 to 0 mg (p < 0.0001) of prednisone. Therefore, such preliminary results suggest that in patients with severe allergic eosinophilic asthma benralizumab can exert, within a real-life context, a very rapid and effective therapeutic action, already detectable 4 weeks after the first drug administration.

Keywords: Allergy; Benralizumab; Eosinophils; IL-5 receptor; Severe asthma.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

MeSH terms