Top asthma articles - summary from 2011 CSACI meeting

This summary was compiled from tweets posted by Dr. Stuart Carr @allergydoc4kidz, the president of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (CSACI). The tweets were labeled #CSACI and they reached more than 10,000 people. I would strongly encourage you to post updates on Twitter from the CME conferences that you are planning to attend in the future.

Wade Watson reviewed the TREXA study which included 288 children with mild asthma for 44 weeks. "Rescue" BDP was more effective than placebo in preventing exacerbations, and could be a possible alternative for step-down therapy (Lancet, Sep 2011).

Paul Keith reviewed the top 10 adult allergy papers from 2010-2011, from the McMaster University Plus website:

- Oral prednisone in addition to antibiotics may be helpful for chronic sinusitis (Ann of Int Medicine 2011)

- Lebrikizumab (anti-IL13) is useful for asthma, especially in high periostin subgroup (a marker of airway remodelling). Lebrikizumab improved FEV1, but there was no improvement in symptoms or medication use (NEJM 2011).

- Tiotropium works as step-up therapy in adult asthma. There were similar improvements in lung function and symptom-free days as adding LABA (NEJM 2011).

- LTRA works as first-line or add-on therapy for adult asthma. There were very similar outcomes to low-dose ICS as first-line. LTRA was also similar to LABA as add-on in "real world" study (NEJM 2011).

Disclaimer: The text was edited, modified, and added to by me. I was invited to speak on the topic of social media use by the allergists during the 2011 CSACI meeting.