PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Neil Barnes AU - Adel Mansur AU - Andrew Menzies-Gow AU - Amr Radwan TI - The APEX study: A retrospective review of outcomes in patients with severe allergic asthma who were or were not hospitalised in the year prior to omalizumab initiation in UK clinical practice DP - 2012 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P2338 VI - 40 IP - Suppl 56 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2338.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/40/Suppl_56/P2338.full SO - Eur Respir J2012 Sep 01; 40 AB - The link between increasingly severe asthma and increased hospitalisation risk is well established. We retrospectively reviewed medical records 12 months pre- and post-omalizumab initiation in patients (≥12 years) with severe persistent allergic asthma who were (n=81) or were not (n=55) hospitalised for asthma in the year before omalizumab initiation. Baseline characteristics in hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients were similar: mean age 39.7 and 43.6 years; 27.2% and 38.2% male; mean IgE 278 and 309 IU/mL, respectively. Post-omalizumab initiation there were significant improvements in oral corticosteroid (OCS) burden (primary endpoint), % patients stopping OCS, exacerbation rates and Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) scores.View this table:Overall, similar benefits were seen regardless of hospitalisation in the previous year. This suggests that prior hospitalisation is not a good predictive discriminator of response to omalizumab in patients with severe allergic asthma.