An asthma drug has been found to slash the risk of patients with a debilitating lung disease ending up in hospital.
Trials have shown that a monthly injection of mepolizumab significantly reduces severe symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Some 30,000 Britons die from COPD each year, making it the third-biggest killer disease in the UK.
About 1.2million adults in Britain have the disease and cases are predicted to rise by 40 per cent in the next six years.
The condition occurs when the lungs and airways are damaged and inflamed. It is associated with smoking or exposure to industrial chemicals or dust, but some can suffer from COPD for no clear reason.
Symptoms include a persistent cough, excessive mucus production and shortness of breath, which can disrupt sleep.
Symptoms include a persistent cough, excessive mucus production and shortness of breath, which can disrupt sleep
Trials have shown that a monthly injection of mepolizumab significantly reduces severe symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
Currently patients are first given inhalers and, if they still suffer from a shortness of breath, are moved on to steroid-based tablets.
But in a trial of 1,200 COPD patients, mepolizumab – also known as Nucala, a prescription medication that treats severe asthma – was found to reduce breathlessness and chest infections by 20 per cent when compared with existing treatments.
For patients with chronic bronchitis – a form of the disease where the lungs fill with mucus – the drug cut serious symptoms by a third.
Over the course of a year, patients’ hospital admissions were also cut by 35 per cent.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the NHS spending watchdog, is now reviewing mepolizumab for the treatment of COPD and the jab could be approved by late 2026.
Dr Frank Sciurba, a professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the trial, said: ‘Every physician will know the feeling of seeing a patient hospitalised due to an exacerbation that could have possibly been prevented.
‘The trial uncovers new possibilities in the treatment landscape for COPD patients.’
The findings were published by The New England Journal of Medicine.
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