Targeted therapy for chronic respiratory disease: a new paradigm

Summary

• Targeted therapy has emerged as a highly effective treatment approach for chronic respiratory diseases. Many of these conditions have dismal outcomes; however, targeted therapy shows great results for the subgroup who respond. This represents a new way to approach these conditions and offers great promise as a future treatment direction.
• In severe eosinophilic asthma, therapy that targets the interleukin-5 pathway with monoclonal antibodies leads to a 50% reduction in asthma exacerbations in previously refractory disease.
• In cystic fibrosis, lung function improves with therapy that targets specific molecular abnormalities in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator to increase the probability that this chloride channel is open.
• In lung cancer, specifically adenocarcinoma with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation and overexpression of EGFR tyrosine kinase, therapy that inhibits EGFR tyrosine kinase gives better outcomes than conventional chemotherapy.