Doherty S, Mulholland M, Shields M, McCrossan P. Can omalizumab be used effectively to treat severe conjunctivitis in children with asthma? A case example and review of the literature . World J Clin Pediatr 2021; 10(4): 48-52 [PMID: 34316438 DOI: 10.5409/wjcp.v10.i4.48]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Patrick McCrossan, MBChB, MRCPH, Lecturer, Centre of Medical Education, Queens University Belfast, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences Whitla Medical Building 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7BL, United Kingdom. p.mccrossan@qub.ac.uk
Research Domain of This Article
Pediatrics
Article-Type of This Article
Evidence Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Pediatr. Jul 9, 2021; 10(4): 48-52 Published online Jul 9, 2021. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v10.i4.48
Can omalizumab be used effectively to treat severe conjunctivitis in children with asthma? A case example and review of the literature
Stephen Doherty, Melissa Mulholland, Michael Shields, Patrick McCrossan
Stephen Doherty, Department of Paediatrics, Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, Belfast BT12 6BA, United Kingdom
Melissa Mulholland, Department of Paediatric Education and Simulation, Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, Belfast BT12 6BA, United Kingdom
Michael Shields, Department of Child Health, Queens University Belfast, Belfast BT12 6BJ, United Kingdom
Patrick McCrossan, Centre of Medical Education, Queens University Belfast, School of Medicine, Belfast BT9 7BL, United Kingdom
Patrick McCrossan, Department of Paediatric Respiratory, Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, Belfast BT12 6BA, United Kingdom
Author contributions: McCrossan P and Shields M devised the idea of the article; Doherty S performed the literature search with assistance from Mulholland M; Doherty S wrote original draft; McCrossan P and Mulholland M edited the draft; Shields M provided further direction with regards the subject area.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Patrick McCrossan, MBChB, MRCPH, Lecturer, Centre of Medical Education, Queens University Belfast, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences Whitla Medical Building 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 7BL, United Kingdom. p.mccrossan@qub.ac.uk
Received: January 8, 2021 Peer-review started: January 8, 2021 First decision: January 25, 2021 Revised: February 12, 2021 Accepted: May 7, 2021 Article in press: May 7, 2021 Published online: July 9, 2021
Abstract
A 14-year-old girl with poorly controlled asthma attended the difficult-to-treat asthma clinic for review. Although she has eosinophilia and significantly raised immunoglobulin E levels, she is not currently a candidate for omalizumab (Xolair). She also suffers from chronic urticaria, eosinophilic eosophagitis and severe conjunctivitis. You wonder if omalizumab would be effective in treating her multiple atopic conditions, in particular her troublesome conjunctivitis. PubMed was searched using the following search terms: (Omalizumab) or (Xolair) and (conjunctivitis). Searches were conducted in November 2020. Abstracts were selected for full text review if the study population identified asthma as a comorbidity. Non-paediatric studies and those that were not written in English were excluded. The use of omalizumab has the potential to be effective in the treatment of conjunctivitis associated with asthma and other atopic conditions. However, research is needed to address the question, in the form of multicenter, double-blind randomized control trials.
Core Tip: Asthma is often associated with multiple atopic conditions which can be more debilitating than the asthma itself. The use of omalizumab has the potential to be effective in the treatment of conjunctivitis associated with asthma and other atopic conditions. However, research is needed to address the question, in the form of multicenter, double-blind randomized control trials.
