Comorbidities are common in asthma and may complicate treatment response.
To examine response to omalizumab in patients with moderateto-severe allergic asthma by asthma-related/allergic comorbidities METHODS: Patients aged 12 years or more from placebo-controlled 008/009 (n = 1071), EXTRA (n = 848), and INNOVATE (n = 419), and single-armed PROSPERO (n = 801) omalizumab studies were included. Poisson regression/analysis of covariance models were used to estimate adjusted exacerbation rates/forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) change from baseline after omalizumab initiation for subgroups by number of comorbidities (0/1 [008/009]; 0/1/≥2 [EXTRA/INNOVATE]; 0/1/2/≥3 [PROSPERO]). Self-reported comorbidities included allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, chronic rhinosinusitis, recurrent acute sinusitis, nasal polyps, atopic/contact dermatitis, urticaria, food allergy, anaphylaxis, other allergies, gastroesophageal reflux disease, eosinophilic esophagitis, and eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis.
In EXTRA/INNOVATE, no consistent pattern was observed for placebo-corrected relative rate reduction in normalized asthma exacerbations among omalizumab-treated comorbidity subgroups. In PROSPERO, on-study exacerbation rates in the comorbidity subgroups were similar (0, 0.68; 1, 0.70; 2, 0.77; ≥3, 0.80). FEV1 improvements were observed throughout the study for omalizumab vs placebo for all comorbidity subgroups. There were no consistent differences in FEV1 improvements among comorbidity subgroups in 008/009, EXTRA, or INNOVATE. Similarly, no among-group differences were observed for FEV1 change from baseline at month 12 in PROSPERO (0, 0.05 L; 1, 0.08 L; 2, 0.00 L; ≥3, 0.04 L). 95% confidence intervals overlapped substantially in all instances.
In these analyses of placebo-controlled/single-armed studies, on-study exacerbation rates/FEV1 improvements with omalizumab treatment were similar irrespective of comorbidity burden.

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