Switching between biologics in severe asthma patients. When the first choice is not proven to be the best

• Published in: Clinical and experimental allergy Vol. 51; no. 2; pp. 221 - 227
• Main Authors: Papaioannou, Andriana I., Fouka, Evangelia, Papakosta, Despina, Papiris, Spyridon, Loukides, Stelios
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.02.2021
• Subjects: Anti-Asthmatic Agents - therapeutic use; Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized - therapeutic use; Asthma; Asthma - drug therapy; Asthma - physiopathology; atopy; Biological products; Biological Products - therapeutic use; biologics; Drug Substitution; eosinophils; Humans; Monoclonal antibodies; Omalizumab - therapeutic use; oral corticosteroids; Patients; severe asthma; Severity of Illness Index; atopy; severe asthma; eosinophils; biologics; oral corticosteroids
• ISSN: 0954-7894; 1365-2222; 1365-2222
• DOI: 10.1111/cea.13809

During the last decades, new treatments targeting disease mechanisms referred as biologics have been introduced in the therapy of asthma and currently, five monoclonal antibodies have been approved. Although these therapeutic agents have been formulated to target specific asthma endotypes, it is often difficult for the treating physician to identify which patient is the best candidate for each one of these specific treatments especially in the clinical scenario of a patient in whom clinical characteristics overlap between different endotypes, allowing the selection of more than one biologic agent. As no head‐to‐head comparisons between these biologics have been attempted, there is no evidence on the superiority of one biologic agent over the other. Furthermore, a physician's first therapeutic decision, no matter how carefully has been made, may often result in suboptimal clinical response and drug discontinuation, indicating the need for switching to a different biologic. In this short review, we discuss the available evidence regarding the switching between biologics in patients with severe asthma and we propose a simple algorithm on switching possibilities in case that the physicians’ initial choice is proven not to be the best.