Omalizumab and long-term quality of life outcomes in patients with moderate-to-severe allergic asthma: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND

Asthma is a highly prevalent chronic inflammatory airways disease, with a considerable impact on quality of life (QoL). To express the effects of asthma on patients' subjective experience, patient-reported outcomes (PROs) represent an important instrument. The asthma QoL questionnaire (AQLQ) is one of the main PROs among these.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

To identify long-term asthma-related QoL outcomes associated with omalizumab therapy in patients with moderate-to-severe asthma, we developed a systematic review according to the PRISMA guidelines. Published real-world effectiveness studies of adults or adolescents (12 years or older) with moderate-to-severe allergic asthma treated with omalizumab for at least 48 weeks were reviewed. Sources used were Medline ( PubMed), the Cochrane Library and Google Scholar up to February 2018. In addition, a cross-referencing search was conducted to complete the revision.

RESULTS

A total of 255 potential papers were identified in the first search through the database. After full-text viewing, eight articles were finally included in the review. We summarized the results according to the study design, patient baseline characteristics and effectiveness outcomes assessed by AQLQ score results: variation from baseline to the end of study. Results confirmed the long-term benefits of omalizumab as an add-on therapy in patients with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe allergic asthma. Since there is a lot of evidence on omalizumab effectiveness, we aimed to focus on how a therapy can change patient's QoL in a long time period. Data showed long-term effects of omalizumab treatment on subjective (PROs) and objective (lung function, corticosteroid use, hospitalizations, asthma exacerbation) effectiveness measures.

CONCLUSION

Studies included in our review were observational trials that, due to their design, present a potential risk of selection bias in the patients included. Beyond this limit, the evaluation of QoL using the AQLQ showed a clear increase over time, following both 48 weeks and 9 years of observation, where QoL improvements still were significant over baseline values.