Allergy News

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - U.S. drug maker Schering-Plough Corp. <SGP.N> will develop and sell Denmark's ALK-Abello anti-allergy drug Grazax in North America, the Danish company said on Wednesday.

Shares in the Danish company rose 7.1 percent to 1,550 crowns on the news.

The drug treats grass pollen, house dust mite and ragweed allergies. The two companies will develop and sell it in the United States, Canada and Mexico, with Schering-Plough acquiring exclusive license rights.

Continue reading "Schering-Plough to sell Danish anti-allergy drug" »

A fluffy white cat named Joshua and brethren would have allergic tabby-lovers, long starved of feline companionship, believe the day of the litter box is just $3,950 away. Some allergists are skeptical. Other are taking a wait-and-sneeze approach.

Joshua, now 20 months old, is touted by a company here called Allerca as "the world's first scientifically proven hypoallergenic cat." Others lacking a key allergenic protein have been bred since Joshua.

Continue reading "Tale of a 'Hypoallergenic' Cat and Standby Antihistamines" »

By Hana R. Solomon, MD

Worldwide, only 10% to 30% of healthcare is provided by conventional, Western, biomedical practitioners. The remainder is delivered either through folk beliefs or alternative traditions.^[1] Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become more popular in the United States over the past few decades. With this increasing popularity of CAM, it is important that practitioners become familiar with this area of medical practice for all diagnoses.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), CAM is defined as "a group of diverse medical and healthcare systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.^[2]" The list of modalities included in this definition continually changes as practices are integrated into Western conventional medicine. They also identify 5 concepts, or domains, of CAM:

Continue reading "Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Advances in Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology" »

By David H. Broide, MD, ChB

Asthma is a very common airway disease affecting approximately 20 million individuals in the United States. For many patients with persistent asthma, asthma is well controlled with a regular controller medication, such as an inhaled corticosteroid, and an as-needed beta2-agonist inhaler for symptom relief.^[1] Nevertheless, each year in the United States, there are still approximately 10 million acute attacks of asthma, 2 million asthma urgent care visits, 400,000 asthma hospitalizations, and 4000-5000 asthma deaths, underscoring the fact that asthma is still not well controlled in a large number of asthmatics.^[2] Patients with severe asthma use a significant fraction of the $6.2 billion in annual direct cost expenditure on asthma in the United States.^[3] The development of novel therapeutic options for these asthmatics would be a significant advance.

Continue reading "Novel Therapies for Asthma" »

By Mark T. O'Hollaren, MD Oregon Health and Science University

In the last several years, the concept of "asthma control" has received significant attention. National and international asthma treatment guidelines increasingly stress the fact that those caring for patients with asthma need to be aware of the impact that asthma has on the daily lives of their patients. Asthma care is moving away from focusing primarily on a number, such as pulmonary function tests or peak expiratory flow measurements, to one in which these numbers are combined with other assessments, such as quality of sleep, limitation of activity and exercise, and requirement for rescue medications.

Continue reading "Maximizing Asthma Control" »

By Dale T. Umetsu, MD, PhD

Allergic asthma is an immunologic disease that is caused by adaptive immune responses to environmental allergens. Asthma is thus characterized by the presence of allergen-specific immunoglobulin (Ig)E, which is produced during adaptive immune response and by the presence of allergen-specific CD4+ Th2 cells producing interleukin (IL)-4, IL-5, and IL-13.^[1] Th2 cells are also generated during adaptive immune responses, and are thought to play a central role in orchestrating the inflammation in asthma, because IL-4 causes isotype switch to IgE; IL-5 enhances the growth and differentiation of eosinophils; and IL-13 causes airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) -- a cardinal feature of asthma.^[2] The development of these adaptive immune responses with IgE and Th2 cells reflects allergen sensitization, which is a significant risk factor for the development of asthma.

Continue reading "T Cells in the Pathogenesis and Prevention of Asthma" »

The following summary reviews some of the highlights of the year in asthma research. For fuller accounts, links to the individual articles published in MedPage Today have been provided.

Mortality

Despite the decline in mortality reported at the 2006 annual meeting of American College of Asthma, Allergy & Immunology, asthma still accounts for one of every 250 deaths worldwide, many of which could have been prevented with better medical care.

• ACAAI: Asthma Deaths Decline Worldwide

Continue reading "The Year in Asthma" »

Asthmatx Inc., a medical device company that focuses on a catheter-based procedure for the treatment for asthma, said Wednesday its investigational treatment was named one of the Top Ten Medical Innovations for 2007 by the Cleveland Clinic.

Mountain View-based Asthmatx said the list recognizes breakthrough medical technologies that have the potential to have an impact on health care in 2007.

Asthmatx said its bronchial thermoplasty, a minimally-invasive procedure, is a non-drug treatment for asthma that is currently under clinical investigation at more than 30 research centers around the world.

Continue reading "Cleveland Clinic gives Asthmatx Top 10 award" »