Biologic treatment eligibility and characteristics of Romanian patients with severe asthma: Real-world data from the RECOGNISE study

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Severe asthma remains refractory to optimised therapy with oral/systemic corticosteroids even after addressing contributing factors, impacting the patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and increasing the risk for comorbidities and mortality. Several biologics are available for severe asthma treatment; however, their use remains heterogenous across Europe. Aims To generate real-world data on the characteristics of adult patients with severe asthma in Romania and their eligibility for biologics. Methods The European, non-interventional, multicenter RECOGNISE study (NCT03629782) evaluated patient characteristics, asthma medication and control, health care resource use, and HRQoL as assessed by St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) in patients with severe asthma, as well as their eligibility for biologic treatment. We report data from the Romanian cohort. Results Of the 117 enrolled patients, 103 were included in the analyses. Almost all patients (90.29%) were treated by specialists. Most patients were female (64.08%) and had never smoked (83.50%). In all, 15 (14.56%) patients had chronic oral corticosteroids (OCS) use. Totally, 89 (86.41%) patients were assessed as eligible for biologic treatment by investigator’s judgement (per label criteria: 79.61%). In the previous year, 77.53% and 78.57% of eligible and non-eligible patients, respectively, had exacerbations of severe asthma, and 53.33% and 15.91% were hospitalised. More eligible patients had poorly controlled asthma (92.13% vs 57.14%) and more impaired HRQoL (mean total SGRQ score: 63.2% vs 47.34%). Conclusion A large proportion of Romanian patients with severe asthma are eligible for biologic treatment. New strategies are needed to further increase the availability of biologics and to improve the management of severe asthma.