TY - JOUR T1 - Are peripheral blood eosinophil counts a guideline for omalizumab treatment? STELLAIR says no! JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J DO - 10.1183/13993003.00730-2018 VL - 51 IS - 5 SP - 1800730 AU - William W. Busse Y1 - 2018/05/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/51/5/1800730.abstract N2 - Biologics for the treatment of severe asthma are assuming an ever expanding and important role to gain disease control when current therapeutics are not effective [1, 2]. Although the number of asthma patients with severe disease is relatively small, 10–15%, when compared to the overall prevalence of asthma, the burden of disease in this group is large from many perspectives including compromises to lifestyle, risks for recurrent and severe exacerbations, hospitalisations, unscheduled care needs, potential for adverse effects from medications, and medical costs. Therefore, severe asthma carries a dominant disease burden for the affected patient [3, 4].Response to omalizumab is not dependent on peripheral blood eosinophil values http://ow.ly/J7KT30jOlYC ER -