We have recently read with interest the article by Kaya et al 1 in CHEST (August 2012) reporting on a patient suffering from chronic eosinophilic pneumonia (CEP) who responded successfully to omalizumab. Five years ago, we attended a 43-year-old nonsmoking man who complained of cough, fever, dyspnea, and wheezing. On the basis of his clinical presentation, peripheral blood and BAL eosinophilia,...

272 Gender and Different Prevalence in Asthma Treatment With Anti-IGE (Omalizumab) Vincenzo Patella, MD, Giovanni Florio, and Carmine Oricchio, MD. Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, General Hospital, ASL Salerno, Agropoli (SA), Italy; Division of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, General Hospital, ASL Salerno, Salerno, Italy; Division of Immunohaematology, General Hospital, ASL Salern...

BACKGROUND Chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) negatively impacts patient quality of life and productivity and is associated with considerable indirect costs to society. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess the cost utility of add-on omalizumab treatment compared with standard of care (SOC) in moderate or severe CSU patients with inadequate response to SOC, from the UK societal persp...

BACKGROUND Atopy and viral respiratory tract infections synergistically promote asthma exacerbations. IgE cross-linking inhibits critical virus-induced IFN-α responses of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), which can be deficient in patients with allergic asthma. OBJECTIVE We sought to determine whether reducing IgE levels in vivo with omalizumab treatment increases pDC antiviral IFN-α respo...

Eosinophilic disorders of the gastrointestinal tract are an emerging subset of immune pathologies within the spectrum of allergic inflammation. Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE), once considered a rare disease, is increasing in incidence, with a rate of over 1 in 10,000 in the US, for unknown reasons. The clinical management of EoE is challenging, thus there is an urgent need for understanding the...

Omalizumab is marketed for chronic severe asthma patients who are allergic to perennial allergens. Our purpose was to investigate whether omalizumab is also effective in persistent severe asthma due to seasonal allergens. Thirty patients with oral corticosteroid-dependent asthma were treated with Omalizumab according to the dosing table. For each patient with asthma due to seasonal allergens, w...

The article presents case reports of 2 women who became pregnant during therapy with omalizumab. Both subjects suffered from very severe asthma and were treated chronically with all available medications including systemic steroids (first - 20 mg prednisolone/day, second - 40 mg prednisolone/day). Both were enrolled into treatment with omalizumab and started regular therapy in 2007. The course ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine baseline characteristics predictive of response to omalizumab, an anti-IgE antibody, in patients with allergic asthma. DESIGN Pooled analysis of two multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase III studies with omalizumab. PATIENTS One thousand seventy allergic asthma patients symptomatic despite moderate-to-high doses (mean, 725 micro g/d) of...

The clinical spectrum of Aspergillus-associated airway diseases (AAAD) includes Aspergillus-induced asthma, allergic bron-chopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) and bronchocentric granulomatosis. Corticoste-roids are almost always used to suppress the immunological response to the fungal anti-gens. 1 Although there are no evidence-based alternative treatment options besides steroids, the well-known ...