Xolair side effect - Is it safe?

[Cirila]

My pulmonologist is recommending me to get the injection with xolair. this is a very costly asthma treatment that sometime insurance doesn't want to pay. It seem to work really well but I just read the side effects and scared me a little.
One of them is cancer, and the other anaphylaxis. it says that out of 4,000 people, 20 got cancer.
Is this a safe treatment?

[ill13632]

it seems like the best thing might be to completely exhaust any other option and consider the severity of your asthma and it's effect on your health and lifespan before trying xolair
it seemed from some descriptions of xolair that the mechanics of how it helps asthma are not even that well understood
I would be curious to hear about long term studies done on xolair like over 40 years

[ill13632]

I've tried symbicort and dulera but now they don't work with the infection I've had for weeks which could be viral since 3 antibiotics didn't seem to work that well.  Prednisone didn't work even while I was having this infection.  the thing is the inhalers don't seem to raise my FEV1 levels that much.  xopenex only raised it about 4 points so what does that mean?
xopenex is a more experimental resuce inhaler form of albuterol
my IGE levels are only about 165

cancer as a side effect sounds terrible for xolair- but what is our risk of developing cancer in our lifetime?  

[Cirila]

I went to my new pulmonologist last thursday and yes she was telling me that we were running out of options for me :(
Before starting Xolair she increased the dose of esteroids, So now I'm taking pulmicort 800mcg (4 puff twice a day) to mimic the effect of prednisone. So far it seems to be working so I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm not just in my good days and I will relapse as usual ...

[Jack59]

I took a gander at their website to see how it is supposed to work.

My take is it would be a last ditch treatment if all else fails as far as I am concerned.