Clinical trials push asthma treatment forward

LANSDALE, Pa. (WPVI) -- About one in 12 Americans has asthma. Some are only affected during allergy seasons, but others have year-round struggles.

Doctors say joining a clinical trial could be a big step toward breathing easier.

For more than a decade, asthma ruled Sherry Sikora's life.

"I would just encounter dog hair or cat hair or something on somebody's coat and I'd go into - uh, problems," Sherry explains.

Her flare-ups were fueled by eosinophils: white blood cells that defend against allergens.

A bronchial thermoplasty, which desensitizes airways with radiofrequency heat, brought a lot of relief.

Dr. Kartik Shenoy, a Temple Health pulmonologist, also added a biologic medication to bring eosinophils - and life - to near-normal.

"I don't have flares. I'm not in the hospital," Sherry notes.

"The things that are available to an asthma patient now compared to even a couple of years ago is dramatically, dramatically expanded," Dr. Shenoy notes.

However, "There's still a large subset of individuals that still don't have control," Dr. Shenoy adds.

So, he says clinical trials of new treatments are essential.

Patients are always carefully matched with the best trial for them and they get a full explanation of what will happen, what's expected of them, and all the possible benefits and risks.

Sherry volunteered for one.

"He literally, during one of our appointments, got a whiteboard and a marker and drew out for me everything," Sherry says.

She says it was very easy: a few hours a month, to compare the drug she was on with another on the market.

Dr. Shenoy says volunteers often get their regular medication and the trial medication.

"The trials could offer them better control of their asthma," he says. "None of this gets billed to their insurance."

Sherry says she benefited from past clinical trials, so why not pay it forward?

"If people don't join clinical trials, they're not gonna know what medicines work and what don't," she says.

But patients don't have to stay in the trials if it becomes a burden or their health changes.

They can always choose to withdraw.