Australian researchers explore new asthma treatments in world-first trials

In a world-first human trial, Australian researchers will test a vaccine used to combat childhood bacterial infections to treat a common type of asthma.

The Hunter Medical Research Institute will study if an injection called Prevenar 13, which is given to protect children against pneumococcal diseases, could also be an effective treatment for people with “eosinophil” asthma. The vaccine will be tested on humans after animal studies showed that it could switch off the immune response of white blood cells that attack the airways of subjects with asthma.

The trial will involve 50 adults with eosinophilic asthma, who will be given three doses of the vaccine over two months.

“There is a balance in the body of inflammation that causes asthma and protective inflammation. In asthma there is an imbalance, so you have too many eosinophils, or white blood cells,” lead researcher Professor Peter Gibson told the Herald Sun.

The vaccine stimulates the immune system to bring it back into balance, Gibson said. To date, there is no specific cure for this type of asthma, and current treatments only reduce symptoms, not the underlying cause. Gibson said the vaccine is a completely new approach in treating asthma, which causes 300 deaths of Australians each year.

The study of the new treatment, which will be funded by Asthma Australia, seeks to revolutionise outcomes for about one million Australians with poorly controlled asthma.

Earlier this month, The Alfred Health in Australia announced that it was testing two personalised treatment techniques in a world-first trial to cure asthma not as respiratory condition but as a rash.

According to Professor Bruce Thompson, The Alfred’s head of physiology service, they will test whether current steroid medication will actually work if it is delivered to the right area in the lung that causes airway inflammation. The study will involve 60 participants, half of whom will inhale a currently available steroid treatment. The medication will be taken through a new inhaler, which shrinks the size of drug particle so that the medication can get further down into the lungs.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline announced that it has received positive results from studies on its asthma treatment, Advair Diskus. The company said its LABA safety study on Advair Diskus, which uses a combination of fluticasone propionate and salmeterol, proved that the drug is safe and effective in treating adolescent and adult patients with asthma.

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