New one for me: Xolair Proven Effective in Asthma Treatment

Maybe I'm out of the loop a little bit, but I hadn' heard of Xolair until I saw this article on HealthDay.

SUNDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Adding the drug Xolair to an asthma
patient's medication regimen helps cut emergency medical visits, new research
confirms.
The research, a pooled analysis of seven prior studies, was
presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy,
Asthma and Immunology in San Antonio.
The fact that the pool analysis
contained more than 4,300 patients, about half of whom were on Xolair, does give
these conclusions more credibility than any single study, said study co-author
Dr. Phillip Korenblat, a professor of clinical medicine at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Let's, of course, keep in mind that the study was conducted by Novartis.

A few more tidbits on the drug:

• It's a once-monthly injection (and the doctor'd better do, cos I won't!!)
• Xolair (generic name omalizumab) is a monoclonal antibody that heads off allergy-triggered asthma
• "Individuals who used Xolair on top of their usual treatment had a 47 percent reduction in total emergency visits. That meant a 52 percent reduction in hospital admission, a 61 percent reduction in trips to the emergency room and a 47 percent reduction in unscheduled doctor visits"

Don't know if it's for pediatric use....and thankfully, I don't even need to ask at this point as the Singulair/Flovent 220 cocktail seems to be doing the job for now.