Progression of asthma
Eight of the RWD analyses examined the effectiveness of AIT on asthma
progression for up to six years follow-up resp. the full analysis period
of 9 years (15–19,21,22,25) showing more heterogenous results than
those for progression of allergic rhinitis. In 4 studies all
investigated AIT-groups required significantly fewer asthma
prescriptions than the corresponding Non-AIT group (15,18,19,21) while
other analyses failed to show significant effects for all AIT
preparations, age groups, timepoints and/or endpoints (16,17,22,25).
Investigating the effect over time by cross-sectional comparisons to the
control group, one assessment found that during the years 4 – 6
significantly less AIT-treated patients required asthma medication
whereas asthma prescriptions were significantly reduced for up to 7
years after starting AIT. In addition, in the AIT group there was a
significantly increased likelihood of stepping asthma treatment down as
well as a significantly lower risk of stepping up (25). For details see
tables S5, S6, S7, S8 in supplementary information.