A recent study, conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Research Network, investigated the reasons black adults in the U.S. die twice as often as Caucasian adults due to asthma, as well as possible treatments for black patients with asthma.
AAFP researchers were assisted on the study by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, the Harvard Clinical Research Institute and Olmsted Medical Center.
The study found that black adults living with asthma, who used a regimen including inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) with an added long-acting beta agonist (LABA), didn't improve time to asthma exacerbation compared to those patients who received the same regimen and added tiotropium (Spiriva).
The researchers also studied the genetic component involved in asthma. Allelic variation at the Arg16Gly locus of the beta2-adrenergic receptor (ADRB2) gene was shown to have no effect on how patients responded to treatment.
"We proved that this alternative medication works as well as beta agonists but not better," Wilson Pace, co-investigator of the study and AAFP's principal investigator, said. "African Americans who took the trial drug versus the other did just as well."
The clinical trial used in the study, which ran from March 2011 to July 2013, was a multi-site, open-label, randomized study that used as subjects 1,070 black adults who lived in the U.S. and were living with moderate to severe asthma.
The subjects were split into two groups -- 532 received treatment that included tiotropium and ICS therapy, and 538 received LABA and ICS therapy.
Pace said three subjects died during the study: two from asthma-related events and one due to the patient not taking medications as prescribed.
"It was somewhat concerning that all of the deaths happened in the group using tiotropium and ICS treatment," Pace said.
