Severe asthma patients can breathe a sigh of relief as advanced treatments become available to people who experience daily difficulties with the chronic lung disease.
More than 2.7 million Australians have asthma, a disease that can range from mild through to severe and is commonly managed through the use of an inhaler.
“Throughout the last 30 years, inhaler therapy has got better and better to the point where 90 per cent of people with asthma are going to have well controlled disease just using their inhalers,” explains Professor David Langton, Head of Respiratory at Peninsula Health.
“The problem has been for the other 10 per cent, who, despite using their inhalers, have had lots of ongoing symptoms, hospital admissions, which overtime has progressively impaired lung function.”
“In the last five years, there has been new classes of therapies for suffer asthma patients that has made an absolutely life changing difference to them.”
Prof Langton thanks science and a better understanding of the pathways in the body that drive asthma through the body for the development of the new treatments.
“It’s now possible to measure in an individual patient which of those pathways are active and then give them an injection of a monoclonal antibody, a designer product which blocks that pathway,” he says.
“These targeted medications have almost no side effects and just do the one thing that they’re there to do. By blocking off the pathway, it’s like turning off the water in the tap, the asthma just disappears.”
“It’s the biggest advance in respiratory medicine in my career,” says Prof Langton. “It has been the most rewarding thing to ever be involved with.”
Treatments are available to patients who experience daily symptoms or impaired lung function to help reduce the airway inflammation as well as relieve asthmatic symptoms. The injection is self-administered, with patients giving themselves the injection once every two months.
“It’s not necessary to put up with daily symptoms anymore,” adds Prof Langton. “You should schedule an asthma review to discuss new treatments with your doctor.”