Rationale: More than 1 in 4 patients with severe asthma is ?65 years old. Age-related physiological changes (e.g. lung function decline) can influence asthma symptoms and treatment effectiveness in elderly patients. We report here the effectiveness and safety of mepolizumab (an IL-5 inhibitor) in elderly (? 65 years) patients.

Methods: The REDES study was a retrospective, observational study of the effectiveness of mepolizumab 100mg SC every 4 weeks in 318 severe asthma patients in Spain. This post-hoc analysis compares the efficacy of patients ?65 years old to patients <65 years after 12 months of treatment.

Results: 85 (27%) patients were aged ?65 years, vs 233 (73%) patients were <65 years. In the elderly patients, there were more women (76% vs 67%) with a latter mean age at asthma diagnosis (46 vs 29), less comorbid nasal polyps (38% vs 49%) and less atopic sensitization (31% vs 45%). Similar improvements were noted in ACT score (6.5 vs 7.3 points), exacerbation reductions (75% vs 78.4%), and lung function parameters (Table). A greater reduction of OCS daily dose was observed in elder patients (71% vs 56%). No new safety signals were reported in the elderly population.

Conclusions: After 12 months of mepolizumab treatment in patients with severe asthma and eosinophilic phenotype, there were no notable differences in efficacy or safety parameters in patients ?65 years old compared with patients <65 years old.

Funding: GSK (GSK ID 213172)