Biological Therapy Response in Asthma

The socio-demographic variables included age, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking status, years with the disease, nasal polyps, previous respiratory disease, allergies, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (SAHS), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), years with the treatment, treatment dose, and change to another monoclonal antibody therapy. Individuals were classified as non-smokers if they had never smoked or had smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lives, as former smokers if they had smoked 100 or more cigarettes in their lives but did not currently smoke, and as current smokers. For BMI, following the WHO criteria, individuals were classified as underweight (BMI < 18.5), healthy weight (18.5 < BMI < 24.9), overweight (25 < BMI < 29.9), or obese (BMI > 30) [57 ].
The clinical variables were collected according to the year before starting treatment with the biological therapy and after completing the first year of treatment. They included ICS maintenance doses expressed as fluticasone propionate µg equivalents, OCS bursts required in the follow-up period and maintenance OCS doses expressed as mg prednisone equivalents [58 (link)], blood eosinophil count, exacerbations requiring emergency department treatment and/or hospitalization with OCS for at least 3 days, IgE, lung function as percentage forced expiratory volume in the first second (%FEV1), and asthma control test (ACT) [59 ].