Asthma Patients Not Adequately Controlled on ICS Alone More Likely to Benefit From Advair(R) Than Doubling the D...( Findings of Observational Study Pr...)

Findings of Observational Study Presented at American Thoracic Society

Annual Meeting

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. and TORONTO, May 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Patients with asthma not adequately controlled on the inhaled corticosteroid fluticasone propionate (FP) alone experienced significant reduction in severe exacerbations when switched to the equivalent dose of FP combined with salmeterol administered as Advair Diskus(R) (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder) compared with patients who received a double dose of FP. The findings from an observational study were presented today at the International Conference of the American Thoracic Society meeting in Toronto.

Researchers analyzed more than 5 years of data from a health insurance claims database and identified 1,904 patients uncontrolled on an inhaled corticosteroid alone. The study found patients who were switched to Advair were 36 percent less likely to suffer a severe asthma exacerbation defined by treatment with oral or injected steroid, an emergency-department (ED) visit or hospital admission (p<0.001) than those who received double dose FP. In an analysis of only ED visits and hospitalizations, the number of events was too infrequent in both treatment groups to show a statistical difference, however the rate of these events was lower in patients treated with Advair (5.2%) versus FP (7.6%).

Additionally, patients switched to Advair needed 34 percent fewer prescriptions for albuterol, a short-acting beta-agonist also known as a rescue inhaler (p<0.001). Results were similar regardless of the starting dose of FP.

Advair combines two medications in one device to help prevent and control asthma symptoms. Asthma causes inflammation (swelling in the airways) and airway constriction (the tightening of muscles that surround the airways), and Advair contains both an inhaled corticosteroid, fluticasone propionate, to reduce inflammation; and
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