Anti-interleukin-5 treatments as adjunct to standard care for severe asthma

The results indicate that treatments targeting IL‐5 or the IL‐5 receptor reduce clinically significant asthma exacerbation rates by approximately half in participants with severe eosinophilic asthma already on standard care with a history of poor control.

Clinically significant exacerbations were defined as episodes requiring at least 3 days’ treatment with systemic corticosteroids; standard care was defined as at least medium‐dose inhaled corticosteroids; and poor control was defined as either 2 or more exacerbations in the preceding 12 months or an Asthma Control Questionnaire score of 1.5 or more.

The effect size was comparable across the drugs and formulations, except for subcutaneous reslizumab, which was relatively ineffective.

All anti‐IL‐5 treatments produced small improvements in validated HRQoL scores and lung function tests in severe eosinophilic asthma, but these may not be sufficient to be detected by patients.

There were no excess serious adverse events with any anti‐IL‐5 treatment; in fact, there was a reduction in such events with benralizumab, likely arising from fewer asthma‐related hospital admissions.