2022 Southern Medical Research Conference
Sanofi: Smoker's Lung Drug Benefit Was Swift And Sustained In Trial
By Ludwig Burger
CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC.
May 22 (Reuters) - The benefits of Sanofi and Regeneron's anti-inflammatory drug Dupixent set in quickly during a trial to treat "smoker's lung" and lasted for the duration of the 1-year study, French drugmaker Sanofi said late on Sunday.
The company said it was discussing with major watchdogs across the world whether the trial results are substantial enough to support a regulatory review or whether that will require the results of another ongoing trial.
It said in March in a brief summary of the late-stage trial that Dupixent was associated with a 30% reduction in acute exacerbations of the disease, which is also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
This potentially added billions to the French drugmaker's growth prospects but also underscored a heavy reliance on its bestseller.
Dupixent, approved to treat conditions including asthma and eczema, is being jointly developed with Regeneron.
Sanofi presented details on the successful study at the American Thoracic Society congress in Washington over the weekend.
"Within two weeks we saw improvement in lung function and improvement in quality of life," said Naimish Patel, Sanofi head of global development for immunology and inflammation.
"And this was also sustained, out to 52 weeks," he added.
A similar second COPD trial was launched by Sanofi to underpin the statistical reliability of the results, but it remains unclear whether regulators will start a review now or wait for the results of the staggered second trial, expected some time in the first half of 2024.
"We will take these results to regulators and have a discussion about what can be done ahead of the read-out of the second trial," Patel said.
Sanofi previously forecast Dupixent would generate up to 13 billion euros ($14.2 billion) in sales in its best year as it seeks to widen its use across several inflammatory conditions, but excluded COPD from its sales target.
Patel would not comment on any review of the peak sales estimate.
($1 = 0.9168 euros) (Reporting by Ludwig Burger; editing by Jason Neely)
Doctor Answers Lung Questions From Twitter
Pulmonologist Dr. Ravi Kalhan answers the internet's burning questions about our lungs. What happens to your lungs if you vape? How do our lungs know the difference between oxygen and carbon dioxide? How much snot can your lungs hold? Does lung cancer only happen because of smoking? Dr. Kalhan answers all these questions and much more! Director: Lisandro Perez-Rey Director of Photography: Francis Bernal Editor: Louville Moore Expert: Dr. Ravi Kalhan Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi Associate Producers: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White Casting Producer: Nick Sawyer Camera Operator: Eric Brouse Audio: Sean Paulsen Production Assistant: Ryan Coppola Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Additional Editor: Paul Tael Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
Video Transcript- I'm pulmonologist Dr. Ravi Kalhan.
Let's answer some questions from Twitter.
This is "Lung Support."
[upbeat music] @jwaizen asks, "If you vape, what your lungs look like.
Quick."
Normally a lung looks like this.
There's a black, which is air inside the lung, and it looks really clear.
So if you vape and you are unlucky and get vaping-associated lung injury, inflammation happens and the air sacs fill up with stuff.
So this white stuff in this X-ray really is the injury caused by vaping.
So this means there's fluid inside the air sacs.
You can't move oxygen and carbon dioxide through fluid.
They're gases.
It makes it hard to breathe because the air can't move in and out of your lungs and exchange the oxygen for carbon dioxide.
@gvybi asks, "How do lungs know what's oxygen and what's carbon dioxide?"
So the lungs don't know what's oxygen and carbon dioxide.
The air comes in through the windpipe, gets spread out throughout the lung in a bunch of air sacs.
Each air sac has a blood vessel going by it, so the gas moves from inside the air sacs in the lung into the blood where it attaches to hemoglobin that's job is to carry oxygen.
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It's really avid for oxygen.
And then the carbon dioxide, which is higher in the blood than it is in the air that's inside the lung, diffuses out.
@haris_a1 asks, "Can lungs be transplanted?"
They sure can.
Lung transplants are done mostly for chronic lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, or COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
To get a lung transplant, you have to go on a bypass machine and then they actually remove a lung, cutting off the windpipe and reattaching the windpipe, and put in a new set of lungs.
But you've gotta be pretty, pretty, pretty sick to get a lung transplant.
@NeimanMarcusEsq asks, "I wonder what bad lungs sound like?
I'm in the doctor's office with good sounding lungs so I wanna know how bad lungs sound."
When you go to the doctor, they put on their stethoscope and they, you know, very doctorly, start listening in the back, side to side, bottom.
When we say lungs sound good, that means we can hear air moving in and out of the lungs without making any extra noises.
One of the most common things we hear is wheezing.
It sounds like this.
[muffled wheezing] That whistling noise on the way out means that there's resistance to air moving through the windpipes.
We hear this sound, wheezing, pretty commonly with asthma, sometimes with COPD.
Because of narrowing of the windpipes, people can wheeze.
Another thing we listen for is crackles.
They sound like this.
[crackling] Crackles occur when there's stuff in the air sacs.
So if there's fluid in the air sacs, that creates a crackling noise when it inflates.
That can be created by heart failure, blood backing up into the lungs from the heart 'cause the heart isn't pumping well.
It can be created by pneumonia when fluid fills up areas of the lung, and those are usually what we call fine crackles.
There also can be something called coarse crackles.
[coarse crackling] Coarse crackles occur when there's pulmonary fibrosis, or scarring in the lungs.
@yoseiyume asks, "Honestly WTF is COPD?
Like what."
C O P D is the most common lung disease.
It occurs mostly in smokers and it sometimes gets called emphysema.
The lung is normally rubbery and elastic.
It's like made up of tons of balloons, and if you take a balloon and you blow air into it... [balloon hissing] And when you take the air and let go, so air fills the lung, it comes out super easily and fast.
With emphysema, the lung loses its elasticity, so it gets like this grocery bag.
Air can go into it, and then someone has to breathe in again 'cause you gotta keep breathing, right?
So more air goes in and then it just stays there, and then more air goes in and it just stays there.
Imagine taking a breath in and then taking another breath in and then taking another breath in without air coming out fully after each breath, and then getting up and trying to like go up a flight of stairs.
It's pretty uncomfortable to move around with air stuck in your lungs.
@artsetsufree asks, "How much snot can your lungs hold?"
The lung capacity, like the amount of volume in someone's lungs, can be anywhere from three to five liters.
Mucus is produced by the cells that line the windpipes.
If someone has allergies, right, and they inhale a bunch of pollen, their nose starts running and dripping and their lungs can produce stuff and they start coughing, and to protect against that reaction, it creates fluid or a film along the lining of the lungs so that the exposure to that stuff goes down.
@bless_bottle asks, "Does anyone have studies of #cannabis inhalation effect on the lungs?
Trying to gauge long-term damage, how it compares to smoking cigarettes and whether vaping really reduces risk."
It's been known for some time that smoking marijuana causes less injury to the lungs than smoking tobacco cigarettes.
People smoke fewer joints historically than they do cigarettes in a day.
It's also true that marijuana itself is what we call a bronchodilator, so it relaxes the muscle in the windpipes and opens them up a little bit so people temporarily can breathe easier if they get cannabis in their lungs.
Now, the problem is vape juice doesn't just have pure cannabis in it.
It has all sorts of other things and you heat it up and it causes long-term problems because all the other stuff gets in the lungs and causes damage to the wind pipes and air sac.
@cattlegoth asks, "I've been thinking about alveoli too much lately.
I just want to know what they feel like.
Are they soft like roe or is there firmness like a ripe berry?"
I think maybe the best way to think about the lung is like a sponge.
Not really firm like a raspberry.
So the lung has a main branch, that's this Y here, and then it branches into millions of tiny branches.
At the end of each branch is a tiny air sac called an alviolus.
Then the whole thing is surrounded by like a Saran Wrap called the pleura.
which holds the whole thing together.
@jinxeptor asks, "Why is cold air so hard on lungs?"
Well, cold air triggers reactions in things, right?
It's hard on skin, it makes your eyes water.
You breathe in, cold air hits your windpipes, can really irritate them.
In people with asthma, it can cause an asthma flare-up.
It can cause wheezing and real trouble breathing.
So what should people do about that?
Well, breathing through your nose is better than breathing through your mouth.
When you breathe through your nose, the air gets warmed up and humidified before it goes into the lungs.
Or when it's really cold, people, especially with asthma, but probably everybody who gets sensitive to cold air, should wear a scarf or a mask or something that allows the air to get warmed before they breathe in.
@emilycblz asks, "How do I train my lungs to not asthma?"
You can't really train your lungs to not have asthma.
You can avoid the things that trigger your asthma.
So if you're allergic to cats, get rid of your cat.
So when asthma's acting up, there's inflammation inside the windpipes, and when there's inflammation inside the windpipes, they get narrowed and filled up with mucus and phlegm so air can't move in and out, and then the muscles around the windpipe actually spasm and squeeze the windpipe shut.
So the best way to deal with asthma is to use an inhaled antiinflammatory medicine.
A lot of people have asthma.
10% to 15% of people in the United States have asthma.
Their inhaler may have a bronchodilator, something called albuterol or rescue medicine that opens up their windpipes.
Most people with asthma who have significant symptoms should be on an antiinflammatory inhaler, an inhaled corticosteroid which lowers the inflammation, so they don't need this rescue bronchodilator.
@AlexanderMcCoy 4 asks, "Is there any truth to the urban legend that smokers do better than non-smokers in high altitude rucks, because their lungs are used to it?"
There is no truth to that.
Smokers do not do better at altitude.
In fact, lots do worse because they might have COPD or other things that impair their oxygen in their lungs.
There's lower oxygen pressure at higher altitudes, which means there's less oxygen available to transfer to the lungs.
One of the adaptations that the body makes after it's been at high altitude is to make more hemoglobin.
The oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood goes up.
Athletes sometimes train at high altitude to improve their hemoglobin so that they are capable of carrying more oxygen when they are at sea level.
@yoyo_yelena asks, "Curious, what does covid do to lungs?
Does it fill them with fluid?
The x-rays look horrible but I have no clue what they mean."
When covid was causing the pandemic and people were dying everywhere, it caused pneumonia.
So this is what covid can look like in the lung.
This one has worse pneumonia on the left side and not as bad on the right side.
This area right here, this white stuff, it's filled up, socked in, we call it consolidation.
It has bacteria, immune cells, white blood cells, things that are trying to fight an infection.
I betcha this person got really sick, had a low blood oxygen level, and was having a really hard time breathing.
Why some people with covid caught a runny nose and other people got pneumonia and died, we don't know.
Some people are just more vulnerable, like if you have diabetes, if you smoke cigarettes or vape, you're probably more vulnerable to infections.
@watrcoolr asks, "How does a pulse oximeter measure the blood oxygen levels without actually taking blood?"
So this pulse oximeter you can wear on your finger shoots infrared light from one side and has a sensor on the other, and you've gotta put it on a part of thin skin.
That's why we put it on our finger or our earlobe.
Hemoglobin, when it has oxygen attached to it, has a certain configuration, and when it doesn't have oxygen attached to it, it has a different configuration.
That influences how much light gets absorbed.
And then the sensor in the pulse oximeter can then calculate how much blood oxygen there is based on that confirmation of hemoglobin.
A normal blood oxygen level is like 95% or higher.
It's dangerous if it's below 90%.
That's when I think we should really pay attention.
@ireojima asks, "I'm sorry, but how is mouth to mouth even real?
Like how am I not just exhaling carbon dioxide into your lungs instantly killing you?
Scientists explain this."
So it's not mainly carbon dioxide.
What we breathe in, remember, is mostly nitrogen.
The atmosphere is mostly made up of nitrogen.
It's about 21% oxygen, and then some small portion of carbon dioxide.
So when you breathe out there's a little more carbon dioxide than what's in the air, but it's not 100% carbon dioxide.
It's still more like the air we breathe in than anything else.
@paisleymoths asks, "Like do lungs have muscles?
Can I train myself to be like able to hold my breath longer than anyone?"
The diaphragm is outside the lung.
It goes downward, the lung opens up.
So those muscles can be trained and you can make those muscles stronger and breathe more efficiently to some extent.
But the lungs themselves don't have muscles that generate breathing.
One of the reasons people who train can hold their breath longer is they're in better shape, so all their muscles in their body demand less oxygen and produce less carbon dioxide so their lungs don't have to do as much work to keep those muscles fueled.
Sometimes people who have operations or are in the hospital get a gadget called an incentive spirometer where you're told to breathe in and make these balls go up.
The reason for that is people who are lying in bed don't breathe deeply, and then if that happens, areas of the lung can end up without air in them called atelectasis, and we wanna prevent that 'cause areas of the lung without air in them are prone to developing pneumonia.
And one of the ways we prevent that is forcing people to breathe deeply using one of these machines.
@bphesq asks, "Which is worse for your lungs, vaping or smoking?
#AskingForSeveralFriends."
Smoking we've known forever to be bad, and vaping is newer and we don't know how bad, but I'm a lung doctor so I think inhaling anything but air is bad for your lungs.
The lungs can recover from some injuries.
The things that are caused by the environment like smoking cigarettes causing COPD or emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis, which is scarring in the lungs, those things don't heal.
We have treatments that stop them from getting worse, but we don't have a way to just fix it and make it act like you were never exposed to that problem and the lung never got damaged in the first place.
@iwasrightonce asks, "Why TF do lungs have an uneven number of lobes?
What's up with that?"
Well, the reason is is that the left lung has to make space for the heart because the heart sits in the left side of the chest.
There are three lobes on the right, upper, middle, lower, and two lobes on the left.
@deepak_rajgor asks, "Does lung cancer happen only because of smoking?"
Lung cancer's most common cause is smoking, but there are a lot of people who don't smoke who get lung cancer.
There's one exposure that's well known to cause lung cancer, and that's radon exposure.
Around the country, people's basements can have a lot of radon, and home tests are available to test for radon.
And radon is clearly associated with lung cancer when it's present in someone's house.
A lot of young women seem to get lung cancer who didn't smoke.
We have no idea why that is.
They get a type of lung cancer that's often called an adenocarcinoma.
Maybe they had secondhand smoke exposure in the home, maybe there's a genetic factor, but it's pretty scary that non-smokers still get lung cancer at a pretty significant rate.
@farazmunshi asks, "How long before AI can label lung cancer better than a certified radiologist?"
The automated tools on CAT scans are coming soon and will be really helpful.
One of the things where I think they'll be super helpful are the things we can't see.
You know, a CAT scan's a picture and it has various densities of images and we can't see every density on a CAT scan, but there might be parts of the lung that are starting to have abnormalities that we can't see visually that a machine could detect.
And in that sense, AI would be huge, right?
And figure out whether that person needs some enhanced surveillance or things to keep an eye on to see whether they get cancer.
@estoyArTo_ asks, "How TF do lungs collapse?
Like do they just get tired or something?"
They don't get tired.
Usually they get injured and it causes the lung to collapse and causes what we call a pneumothorax.
Getting stabbed or shot or having something go through the chest wall can puncture the lung.
So there's two sets of pleura.
There's a layer of Saran Wrap that's holding all those alveoli together, and then there's a layer against the chest wall, and there's a space between the lungs and the ribcage.
If you pop the balloon, poke a hole in the Saran Wrap, air can escape from inside the lung to outside of the lung.
That builds pressure and the lung can collapse.
It doesn't have enough pressure inside the lung to stay open, so it deflates.
So those are all the questions for today.
Lots of good ones.
Thanks for watching "Lung Support."
[upbeat music]
Smoking Cannabis Doesn't Carry The Same COPD Risk As Tobacco, Study Finds
New research shows that the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — heavily associated with cigarette smoking — is not as high when it comes to cannabis use.
The data was collaborated on by a wide range of researchers from various institutes in the United States. In it, researchers say that smoking cannabis is not as damaging on the lungs as smoking cigarettes.
While the findings are promising — particularly for those who use cannabis for its numerous benefits — experts caution that there are some caveats to the research.
Among other things, they note that any smoke is damaging to the lungs, whether it comes from cannabis or tobacco.
COPD is characterized by coughing and shortness of breath. There is no cure, although the condition can be treated.
While there are a number of environmental risk factors that can contribute to COPD, the most common cause is tobacco smoking.
Experts say that decades of data shows a strong correlation between tobacco use and COPD, but the connection between cannabis smoking and COPD hasn't been studied as much.
"There is a significant amount of data to support the negative impact of cigarette smoking on lung function, but the evidence so far for an association between use of cannabis and decrease in lung function is inconsistent," explained Dr. Thomas Kilkenny, a doctor of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Staten Island University Hospital, Northwell Health, in New York who was not involved in the study.
Kilkenny told Medical News Today that previous studies have drawn similar conclusions — that smoking only cannabis is less harmful to the lungs. Conversely, other studies have indicated that cannabis use is, in fact, associated with abnormalities of small airway function.
He cited a University of Queensland (Australia) study from earlier this year that yielded further data.
"First, it confirms that cigarette smoking — with or without cannabis use — is associated with a reduction of airflow in the lungs," he said. "Second, there is no consistent association between cannabis use and abnormalities in lung function. Finally, co-use of tobacco and cannabis appears to entail no additional risk to lung function beyond the risks associated with tobacco use alone. The verdict still remains out."
The authors of the more recent U.S. Study acknowledge that there are limitations to their data, owing in part to the fact that study participants were self-reporting.
"Because of our study's limitations, these findings underscore the need for further studies to better understand longer term effects of marijuana smoking in COPD," the authors wrote.
Jagdish Khubchandani, PhD, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University, told Medical News Today that there are no guarantees that smoking only cannabis will not lead to COPD.
"Assessing the relationship (between COPD and cannabis smoking) gets complicated because of other factors — heavy versus light use, type of cannabis smoking device, genetics, lifestyle, occupation, and geography," he explained. "Consider a miner living in a very polluted area who smokes cannabis. It would be difficult to attribute the cause of COPD in this case."
While cannabis use has been widespread for decades, it's only in recent years that legalization efforts have led to increased availability.
The legal cannabis industry has created a plethora of ways to partake, from smoking to tinctures to edibles.
Now, there's a growing body of evidence that cannabis has more benefits than just a simple high.
"Cannabis use has been studied extensively and the results show several beneficial outcomes from its use, including lowering blood pressure, reducing inflammation and chronic pain, treating insomnia, preventing relapse in drug and alcohol addiction, treating anxiety and depression as well as preventing seizures," Kilkenny said. "There are also several studies under way to look at the cancer-fighting attributes of cannabis."
While the benefits of cannabis are becoming better known, there are also drawbacks that have nothing to do with smoke inhalation — though these are generally found in chronic users, said Kilkenny.
"Problems can include temporary hallucinations, temporary paranoia, worsening symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, as well as chronic nausea and vomiting," he explained.
The availability of legal cannabis products does create issues from a public health standpoint, said Khubchandani.
"The amount and type allowed legally for medical and recreational use is generally considered safe," he said. "The challenge will remain with overuse, cocktails, influence on young adults, and heavy and chronic consumption. Political, social, and economic considerations are driving legalization, but those should not be the sole drivers."
Kilkenny said that for someone who'd like to try cannabis for its health benefits, the best-practice advice is to seek out an expert.
"There are now physicians that have expertise in using the various cannabis products," he said. "At the very minimum, go to a reputable distributor for advice."
Because different products have different effects and outcomes, it's important for people to buy the right product to give the right outcome. While research suggests that smoking cannabis isn't as bad for the lungs as smoking tobacco, experts say it's still best to avoid smoking altogether — something that's increasingly easier with the wide range of products on the market.
"Avoid smoking or vaping cannabis products," cautioned Kilkenny.
He noted that there can be more serious health effects for children who smoke or vape cannabis.
"As to smoking cannabis, I feel the jury is still out as to whether it can cause chronic lung disease. It is best to be avoided. Also, keep any edible cannabis out of the reach of children as they often mistake the product for candy and can overdose," Kilkenny added.
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