Allergies & Asthma

Inhaled budesonide (Pulmicort), a steroid generally used to treat asthma, dramatically reduced the need for hospitalization in COVID-19 patients within a week of symptom onset, a small randomized trial in the U.K. found. Among 139 patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms, 10 in the control group required either a COVID-19-related urgent care or emergency department (ED)

“The rooster isn’t causing the sun to come up.” — Paul Offit, MD, of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, commenting on how a physician who died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine does not imply a causal relationship between the two events. “He knows about EHR [electronic health record] adoption, he knows about interfaces — the

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, both the CDC and the World Health Organization identified asthma patients as being at high risk for severe disease and hospitalization, but it soon became evident that this may not be the case when study after study showed little or no support for that conclusion. Now the largest research review

Ten cases of anaphylaxis and over 100 cases of severe allergic reactions were reported following administration of the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, but nearly all were among those with a history of allergic reactions, researchers found. Of the 10 cases of anaphylaxis, nine were among those with a history of allergies or

While rare, the rate of anaphylaxis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccines appeared about 10 times that documented for flu shots, CDC officials said on Wednesday. Overall, 21 cases of anaphylaxis following COVID vaccination were reported out of about 1.9 million doses given as of Dec. 23, according to an early Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report release.

Anyone with a history of immediate allergic reaction of any severity to any component of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines or to polysorbate should not be vaccinated, the CDC said in updated interim guidance. While previously the agency released guidelines for contraindication to vaccination, it’s now broadened to include those with a history of immediate allergic reaction

In January, MedPage Today covered the FDA’s approval of an oral peanut allergy immunotherapy, which was seen as heralding a new era in food allergy treatment. In this follow-up feature, we review some of the developments occurring since. The timing probably couldn’t have been worse for the product’s developer, California-based Aimmune Therapeutics. The day its

The 24-hour news cycle is just as important to medicine as it is to politics, finance, or sports. At MedPage Today, new information is posted daily, but keeping up can be a challenge. As an aid for our readers and for a little amusement, here is a 10-question quiz based on the news of the

While criteria for contraindication to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are narrow, more observation or possibly delayed vaccination may be necessary in those with a history of severe allergic reactions, CDC staff said on a call with clinicians on Friday. The only individuals who should not receive mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, such as the recently authorized Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine

Barbecue can return to the menu for individuals with “alpha-gal” syndrome — severe allergic reactions to the alpha-galactose saccharide found in red meat — with FDA approval Monday of pigs engineered to lack an enzyme considered key to the condition. Developed by a company called Revivicor, the “GalSafe” pigs might also have therapeutic potential as

TTHealthWatch is a weekly podcast from Texas Tech. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, look at the top medical stories of the week. A transcript of the podcast is below the summary. This

It’s no secret that there’s a lot of wasteful spending in healthcare, and patients have become increasingly frustrated by this as their insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Yet unnecessary procedures are still performed every day in the U.S. — and sometimes patients are harmed as a result. MedPage Today‘s Enterprise & Investigative Reporting team needs your

New therapies and devices for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were approved in 2020 and researchers continued to explore expanding the definition of disease beyond spirometry. But 2020 was dominated by the struggles managing the care of highly vulnerable COPD patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID Paradox The delivery of routine components of COPD care,

The coronavirus pandemic has been a particularly scary time for children with asthma and their parents, but there is growing evidence that as a group kids with asthma are not only doing OK during COVID-19, but may actually be doing better. A study in Annals of the American Thoracic Society documented a steep drop in

“While doctors have long believed that dementia presents in the checkbook, our study helps show that these financial symptoms are common and span years before and after diagnosis.” — Lauren Hersch Nicholas, PhD, MPP, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, on research showing difficulties with finances were evident long before dementia diagnosis. “Hospitals, they want

New guidelines from the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) — the agency’s first update since 2007 — take account of new management options including single maintenance and reliever therapy (SMART) and long-acting muscarinic antagonists (LAMAs). As has long been standard practice, the foundation for

Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Pfizer and BioNTech announced emergency authorization from the United Kingdom for their COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday. Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows invited FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, MD, to come explain why his agency hasn’t yet granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s

Omalizumab (Xolair) maintained efficacy for chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, a researcher reported. In an open-label extension study of two, 24-week clinical trials, omalizumab was associated with significant improvements in nasal polyp scores (mean change -0.97, 95% CI -1.25 to -0.69), nasal congestion scores (mean change -0.99, 95% CI -1.14 to -0.83), and Sino-Nasal Outcome

Owning a dog while pregnant appeared to shape children’s immune systems well into adolescence, a researcher reported. In a cohort of 1,193 mother-child pairs in southeast Michigan, the area under the curve for immunoglobulin E levels over ages 10-14 (“IgE trajectory”) was 28.8% lower in children with prenatal pet exposure vs children whose mothers kept

Food allergy diagnoses have nearly doubled among Black children in the past two decades, and racial disparities have emerged for parents managing food allergy, according to a pair of studies. Among 326 parents whose children had food allergies, white children were close to 3 times as likely as Black children to have access to allergen-free

Treatment with the investigational anti-IgE biologic ligelizumab was generally effective in patients with H1 antihistamine-unresponsive chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) who did not achieve complete symptom control with omalizumab (Xolair), an exploratory analysis of a phase IIb extension study showed. In a subset of omalizumab-treated patients with a score greater than 0 on the 7-day urticaria

Switching to telemedicine for routine asthma visits in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic was linked with positive disease control and an increase in appointment “show rates” among Los Angeles inner city children, a researcher reported. Delivery of routine asthma care via telemedicine did not appear to negatively impact asthma control among the children

Black children were more likely to have wheat, soy, and seafood allergies than white children, with the starkest differences seen with shellfish, survey data from the FORWARD cohort showed. The analysis of phenotypic differences among a sampling of close to 650 food-allergic children showed that nearly one in four Black children under age 5 had

The investigational monoclonal antibody tezepelumab proved to be an effective therapy for uncontrolled severe asthma in patients with and without perennial and seasonal allergies, a post-hoc analysis of data from the phase II PATHWAY study found. The subgroup analysis focused on patients who did and did not have baseline sensitivity to perennial allergens such as

Patients with allergies to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) could be at an increased risk for opioid use disorder, a researcher reported. In a cohort of patients with osteoarthritis in a large hospital system in Massachusetts, those with NSAID allergies had a significantly higher risk of receiving a future diagnosis of opioid use disorder compared with

Results from a preliminary study showed novel voice and breath analysis using a smartphone app to be a useful measure of lung function, and researchers say the technique may prove to be a valuable tool for identifying and monitoring respiratory disease. Automated voice and breath analysis was found to have value for predicting lung function,

Patients with cancer and COVID-19 have a higher risk of severe disease and mortality, researchers reported. Of 89 cancer patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) due to COVID-19, 32 died, a mortality rate of 36%, reported Michael Dang, MD, a critical care fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City,

Patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who reported using marijuana had less risk of in-hospital mortality and pneumonia than non-users, according to a nationwide population-based study. Use of marijuana was associated with a 37.6% reduction in the odds of dying in the hospital (OR 0.624, 95% CI 0.407-0.958, P=0.0309) among patients diagnosed with