Asthma Exacerbations
In the year prior to the procedure, patients in the TA-B-BAL group
received an average (standard deviation) of 4.17 (4.22) oral steroid
courses, attended 5.88 (5.10) emergency department visits, and
experienced 5.46 (5.32) asthma wheezing exacerbations. At the
post-operative visit, the average number of required oral steroid
courses decreased to 1.21 (1.31), the average number of emergency
department visits to 1.15 (1.34) and the average number of wheezing
exacerbations to 1.77 (1.79).
In the year prior to the first assessment in the asthma clinic, patients
in the control group received an average (standard deviation) of 3.47
(2.79) oral steroid courses, attended 3.42 (3.00) emergency department
visits, and experienced 3.58 (2.47) asthma wheezing exacerbations.
Patients in the control group also demonstrated an improvement with
standard asthma treatment. At a time interval matched with the
post-operative visit, the mean number of oral corticosteroid courses was
1.89 (2.40), the mean number of emergency department visits was 2.11
(2.85), and the mean number of exacerbations was 1.71 (1.59).
A Poisson mixed effects regression analysis revealed that TA-B-BAL was
associated with a 61%reduced risk of oral corticosteroid use (RR 0.39,
95% CI 0.18, 0.83, p=0.014), 64% reduction in emergency department
visits (RR 0.36, 95% CI 0.17, 0.75, p=0.007) and 42% reduction in the
risk of exacerbations (RR 0.58, 95% CI 0.28, 1.20, p=0.14) compared to
standard asthma care.