Time is lung: higher preservation of lung function in severe asthma patients after earlier mepolizumab treatment

Severe asthma involves a persistent inflammation of the airways that is associated with a greater risk of exacerbations. Exacerbations are associated with a higher lung function decline over time. The prevention of lung function decline could become a strategy for disease modification, and this could be more likely to happen in patients with an earlier therapeutic approach. Thus, this study means to analyse the effect of asthma duration in clinical outcomes such as lung function in patients from the REDES study. REDES was an observational real-world study that assessed the effectiveness and safety of mepolizumab 100 mg s.c. every 4 weeks for 12 months in 318 patients with severe asthma in Spain.

This post hoc analysis evaluated how disease duration affected the study results through a stratification according to quartiles on their disease progression. Continuous analyses were also performed to assess the impact of confounder variables on forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV₁) (%).

At baseline, patients with shorter time of disease had a significantly higher lung function than patients with longer asthma duration. At 12 months, pre-bronchodilator (BD) FEV₁ values and the proportion of patients with ≥80% pre-BD FEV₁ were higher according to a shorter disease persistence (Q1>Q2>Q3>Q4).

These results support that time of disease persistence contributes to the lung function decline of patients with severe asthma, uncontrolled while on previous treatment, and that an earlier approach with mepolizumab may imply a higher preservation of their lung function.