Research project
Impact of physical activity promotion on clinical remission in adults with severe asthma receiving tezepelumab: a multicentre, open label, randomised controlled trial
- Funder: AstraZeneca
- Value: 398,705
- Primary investigator: Dr Oliver Price
Project title
Impact of physical activity promotion on clinical remission in adults with severe asthma receiving tezepelumab: a multicentre, open label, randomised controlled trial
Description
Co-Investigators
Dr Ian Clifton – Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Project Overview
Asthma affects over 350-million people worldwide and remains a major source of economic and societal burden. It is estimated that up to 10% of adults and 2.5% of children with asthma have severe disease, which is associated with life-threatening acute exacerbations, debilitating symptoms, activity limitation, and impaired health-related quality of life. In recent years, there have been major advances in the management of severe asthma in terms of phenotyping patients and the development of effective biological therapies.
While previous clinical trials have demonstrated the efficacy of biological therapies in improving ‘hard’ outcome measures (i.e., lung function and reducing acute exacerbations), the effects of these treatments on the lived experiences of patients have not been as dramatic. Importantly, however, recent phase 3 trials evaluating the efficacy and long-term safety of tezepelumab (the first human monoclonal antibody that blocks the activity of thymic stromal lymphopoietin) in adults and adolescents with severe uncontrolled asthma reported significantly fewer exacerbations and improved lung function and asthma control in comparison to those receiving placebo.
With recent advances in effective therapies targeting specific pathways of inflammation, there has been renewed interest in achieving clinical remission – defined as a high level of disease control and the absence of signs and symptoms of asthma for >12-months. However, whilst biological therapies (including tezepelumab) have been shown to be highly effective at improving clinical outcome measures, in most cases, not all clinical remission criteria are met. It remains apparent that conventional strategies and guideline-based treatments in isolation are ineffective for some people with severe asthma, and therefore it is important that future studies incorporate lifestyle intervention and behaviour change strategies alongside pharmacological intervention to maximise and specifically target non-clinical outcome measures that are considered highly important to patients (i.e., the ability to exercise or engage in physical activities and/or maintain a normal healthy body weight)