Black and White patients with moderate-to- severe asthma experience similar improvements in exacerbations, forced expiratory volume (FEV1), and Asthma Quality of Life Question- naire (AQLQ) measures with omalizumab, according to a study published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. While prior research has found that higher asthma burden is more likely to be experienced by Black than White patients, since underrepresentation of minority populations in clinical research has been observed, researchers sought to estimate re- sponse to omalizumab in both Black and White patients in North America. Data from placebo- controlled (EXTRA)/single-armed (PROSPE- RO) omalizumab studies were used for this post hoc analysis. Poisson regression models were used to examine exacerbation rates. An analysis of covariance model was utilized to estimate pla- cebo-corrected change in FEV1 and AQLQ by racial group. Cohorts of 631 White/176 Black patients from EXTRA and 567 White/130 Black patients from PROSPERO were included. In EXTRA, placebo-corrected exacerbation rate re- ductions (relative rate change [95% CI], 22.6% [2.0%-38.9%] vs 22.0% [-18.0%, 48.4%]) and FEV1 improvements were similar for White and Black patients. There was a trend toward greater AQLQ improvements for Black versus White pa- tients (least squares mean [LSM] treatment dif- ferences: 0.0 vs 0.3, 0.6 vs 0.4, and 0.6 vs 0.2 at weeks 16, 32, and 48, respectively) throughout the study. In PROSPERO, on-study exacerbation rates (0.76 [0.65-0.88] vs 0.77 [0.56-1.10]) and AQLQ improvements (LSM change from base- line: 1.2 vs 1.2 and 1.3 vs 1.2 at month 6 and end of study, respectively) were similar for White ver- sus Black patients. A trend toward greater FEV1 improvement was observed in White versus Black patients throughout the study.

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