Omalizumab for Chronic Urticaria

To the Editor: Maurer et al. (March 7 issue) 1 report the results of a phase 3 trial of omalizumab for the treatment of urticaria. Figure 1 of their article shows that withdrawals from the study because of “disease progression” occurred only in patients who received omalizumab; there were no withdrawals due to disease progression in the placebo group. Furthermore, the percentage of patients who withdrew due to disease progression correlated with the dose of omalizumab (1% in the 75-mg group, 4% in the 150-mg group, and 8% in the 300-mg group); this suggests that omalizumab may itself, paradoxically, contribute to . . .