Ellen Kurek

Analysis revealed that adding mepolizumab resulted in a cost-effectiveness ratio of $385,546 per quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY; the price would need to be discounted by more than 70% to reach $100,000 per QALY, a common threshold at which insurers are willing to pay.

Hospital admission allows clinicians to optimize asthma management even when asthma patients have no breathing complaints or abnormal chest exam findings. Although the illness that prompted admission must be treated quickly, asthma care can also be discussed with patients.

A retrospective Australian study found that illicit drug users were almost four times as likely as nonusers to require intensive care for an asthma exacerbation.

Stepping down asthma therapy is often avoided because of fear of exacerbation, but a better understanding of factors that predict step-down outcomes could encourage clinicians to wean patients off medications appropriately.

Lucentis can improve DME that has proven resistant to laser therapy, Trivaris, and Avastin, according to a retrospective review of chart data from the Indianapolis University School of Medicine.

One year after a one-day visit to a severe asthma center, patients with previously uncontrolled asthma had better asthma control and quality of life and used fewer healthcare resources.

Patients in the open-label extension phase of RIDE/RISE who needed Lucentis less frequently tended to have less advanced diabetic macular edema (DME) at extension baseline and to respond better to initial treatment, according to post hoc analysis. These results suggest that earlier treatment of center-involving DME with loss of visual acuity may decrease its long-term treatment burden.

The rate of endophthalmitis after more than 90,000 intravitreal injections was found to be approximately 1 in 3000 in a retrospective study of a consecutive series of cases at a multicenter, retina-only practice. Prophylactic use of topical antibiotics was not found to decrease this rate.

Although intravitreal injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) agents has become the therapeutic mainstay for diabetic macular edema and neovascular age-related macular degeneration, it poses a risk of noninfectious uveitis or infectious endopthalmitis.

After 6 months, an intervention program based on the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet increased the proportion of participants with uncontrolled asthma who achieved minimal clinically important improvement in asthma control.

A retrospective chart review study showed that the location of subfoveal fibrovascular scarring in relation to the retinal pigment epithelium correlated with visual outcome in eyes successfully treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agents for neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Study results show that the majority of adult-onset asthma patients had uncontrolled or poorly controlled asthma. A separate study found that exposure to bleach in the home increased the risk of non-allergic adult-onset asthma in women.

Regular users of oral bisphosphonates had a higher risk of developing wet age-related macular degeneration than non-users, according to results of a recent Canadian study, and the longer the use, the greater the increased risk.

Intraocular injections of methotrexate have been used successfully to treat indeterminate and sarcoid uveitis as well as age-related macular degeneration. Methotrexate injection’s record of success in treating these inflammatory eye diseases prompted researchers to evaluate its efficacy in treating persistent diabetic macular edema.

Asthma patients with eosinophilic inflammation respond well to corticosteroids and interleukin- 5 antagonists. The ability to identify eosinophil biomarkers specific to certain disease states could help clinicians refine therapies and determine which patients are likely to respond to them.

Placement of the Ozurdex sustained-release dexamethasone implant in 29 patients with persistent diabetic macular edema resulted in a significant improvement in visual acuity and a significant decrease in central macular thickness 6 months after implantation.

Although asthma outcomes are worse in minorities than in non-minorities, health interventions based on technologies like text messaging and video games can help bridge this gap.

Patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration have shown a suboptimal response to ranibizumab over time. Several studies have established that switching from ranibizumab to aflibercept enhanced visual acuity and resulted in anatomic improvement in many of these patients, but the factors determining visual outcomes remained unclear.

At least 40% of asthma patients remain symptomatic despite treatment with inhaled corticosteroids with or without long-acting beta-2 agonists.

A patch that uses patients’ own stem cells to protect them from vision loss will soon begin phase 1 trials.

Results from the ATLAS study show that patients with wet AMD treated with Eylea experienced visual and anatomic improvements after 1 year that were sustained after 2 years.

Phase 2a trial of novel topical anti-angiogenic agent regorafenib shows lack of efficacy in neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Gene therapy with the CRISPR/Cas9 system corrects mutations identified with patient-specific models that use stem cells generated from skin.

Non-destructive imaging and functional assessment of retinal structures formed from human stem cells confirms their similarity to the adult retina.

Study results show that transplanted human retinal stem cells rescue photoreceptors in rabbit retinas for 8 months.

Study results show that the majority of patients with retinal neovascularization due to proliferative diabetic retinopathy treated with bevacizumab experience total, long-term regression of their symptoms.

Aflibercept exerts anti-angiogenic effects against galectin-1, a galactoside-binding lectin protein and novel angiogenic factor associated with proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

After 12 or 24 monthly injections, ranibizumab, one of three currently available vascular endothelial growth factor antibodies, caused regression of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in at least 75% of patients who had diabetic macular edema and whose DR severity put them at the highest risk of progression to proliferative DR.