Comment on: Pairwise indirect treatment comparison of dupilumab versus other biologics in patients with uncontrolled persistent asthma [Respir Med 2020]

The recently published article ‘Pairwise indirect treatment comparison of dupilumab versus other biologics in patients with uncontrolled persistent asthma’ by Eric Bateman et al. presents an indirect treatment comparison (ITC) of dupilumab and other biologics in patients with uncontrolled asthma, based on analysis of subgroups from the respective randomized controlled trials (RCTs) [ [1] Bateman E.D. et al. Pairwise indirect treatment comparison of dupilumab versus other biologics in patients with uncontrolled persistent asthma. Respir. Med. 2020; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rmed.2020.105991 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (7) Google Scholar ]. The study claims that there was a greater reduction in annualized severe exacerbation rates with dupilumab compared with benralizumab, mepolizumab, reslizumab, and omalizumab. However, we observed some important differences between the dupilumab and mepolizumab trial populations selected for comparison in the paper by Bateman et al.; notably baseline blood eosinophil counts and the use of baseline therapies including oral corticosteroids (OCS).