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Using Blood Eosinophil Count as a Biomarker to Guide Corticosteroid Treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

ABSTRACT: Treating patients hospitalised with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) usually involves administering systemic corticosteroids. The many unwanted side effects associated with this treatment have led to increased interest in minimising the accumulated corticosteroid dose necessary to treat exacerbations. Studies have shown that short-term treatment with corticosteroids is preferred, and recent trials have shown that biomarkers can be used to further reduce exposure to corticosteroids. Interestingly, high eosinophil counts in patients with acute exacerbations of COPD are indicative of an eosinophilic phenotype with a distinct response to treatment with corticosteroids. In addition, post-hoc analysis of randomised control trials have shown that higher blood eosinophil counts at the start of the study predict a greater response to inhaled corticosteroids in stable COPD. In this review, we examine the studies on this topic, describe how blood eosinophil cell count may be used as a biomarker to guide treatment with corticosteroids, and identify some relevant challenges.

SUBMITTER: Sivapalan P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7913607 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using Blood Eosinophil Count as a Biomarker to Guide Corticosteroid Treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Sivapalan Pradeesh P Bikov András A Jensen Jens-Ulrik JU

Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) 20210203 2

Treating patients hospitalised with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) usually involves administering systemic corticosteroids. The many unwanted side effects associated with this treatment have led to increased interest in minimising the accumulated corticosteroid dose necessary to treat exacerbations. Studies have shown that short-term treatment with corticosteroids is preferred, and recent trials have shown that biomarkers can be used to further reduce exposur ...[more]

PMID: 33546498

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Project description:RATIONALE:Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and responses to treatment are heterogeneous. OBJECTIVES:Investigate the usefulness of blood eosinophils to direct corticosteroid therapy during exacerbations. METHODS:Subjects with COPD exacerbations were entered into a randomized biomarker-directed double-blind corticosteroid versus standard therapy study. Subjects in the standard arm received prednisolone for 2 weeks, whereas in the biomarker-directed arm, prednisolone or matching placebo was given according to the blood eosinophil count biomarker. Both study groups received antibiotics. Blood eosinophils were measured in the biomarker-directed and standard therapy arms to define biomarker-positive and -negative exacerbations (blood eosinophil count > and ≤ 2%, respectively). The primary outcome was to determine noninferiority in health status using the chronic respiratory questionnaire (CRQ) and in the proportion of exacerbations associated with a treatment failure between subjects allocated to the biomarker-directed and standard therapy arms. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS:There were 86 and 80 exacerbations in the biomarker-directed and standard treatment groups, respectively. In the biomarker-directed group, 49% of the exacerbations were not treated with prednisolone. CRQ improvement after treatment in the standard and biomarker-directed therapy groups was similar (0.8 vs. 1.1; mean difference, 0.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.0-0.6; P = 0.05). There was a greater improvement in CRQ in biomarker-negative exacerbations given placebo compared with those given prednisolone (mean difference, 0.45; 95% confidence interval, 0.01-0.90; P = 0.04). In biomarker-negative exacerbations, treatment failures occurred in 15% given prednisolone and 2% of those given placebo (P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS:The peripheral blood eosinophil count is a promising biomarker to direct corticosteroid therapy during COPD exacerbations, but larger studies are required.

Dataset Information

Using Blood Eosinophil Count as a Biomarker to Guide Corticosteroid Treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

Publications

Using Blood Eosinophil Count as a Biomarker to Guide Corticosteroid Treatment for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

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