Allergen immunotherapy: what is the added value of real-world evidence from retrospective claims database studies?

Figures & data

Table 1. Strengths and limitations of the RWE studies assessing the development and/or progression of AR and/or asthma in patients using AIT [5,15,17,18].

Strengths

Limitations

Reflects clinical practice and dispensing of AIT Use of nationwide, representative, large patient cohorts Permits comparison of AIT versus standard of care Employs a stringent methodology and design, involving matched control groups to minimize confounding bias Enables testing of different treatment formulations using the same methodology Assesses longitudinal data, allowing patient follow-up over time Data are available across many years, enabling assessment of long-term effectiveness Demonstrates consistency of findings across countries with differing treatment practices

Retrospective design Clinical information must be ascertained via proxies (i.e. dispensing data for AR and asthma medications) Only reimbursed medications are recorded Statistical adjustment needed for control group definition

AIT, allergen immunotherapy; AR, allergic rhinitis; RWE, real-world evidence.

Figure 1. Key study periods examined in the retrospective, longitudinal, real-world analysis of prescription records for grass pollen-associated allergic rhinitis and asthma from the IMS Lifelink™ Treatment Dynamics database [15].

*At ≥ 1 year of follow-up after AIT cessation. AIT, allergen immunotherapy; AR, allergic rhinitis.

Devillier P, Wahn U, Zielen S, et al. Grass pollen sublingual immunotherapy tablets provide long-term relief of grass pollen-associated allergic rhinitis and reduce the risk of asthma: findings from a retrospective, real-world database subanalysis. Expert Rev Clin Immunol. 2017;13(12):1199–1206.

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Wahn U, Bachert C, Heinrich J, et al. Real-world benefits of allergen immunotherapy for birch pollen-associated allergic rhinitis and asthma. Allergy. 2019;74(3):594–604.

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Zielen S, Devillier P, Heinrich J, et al. Sublingual immunotherapy provides long-term relief in allergic rhinitis and reduces the risk of asthma: A retrospective, real-world database analysis. Allergy. 2018;73(1):165–177.

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