New Therapy Regimen for Mild Asthma

Adults with mild persistent asthma may be able to control their disease by taking corticosteroids only when needed instead of taking medication every day, according to a new study.

The study was designed to identify the best long-term treatment strategy for adults with mild persistent asthma. Researchers compared changes in lung function, frequency, and severity of asthma symptoms, and quality of life in 255 adult patients. Subjects were randomly selected to one of three treatment groups. Two groups were assigned to long-term control medication taken twice daily (either an inhaled steroid or a leukotriene modifier), while the third group received placebo. All participants were given medications for asthma symptoms (inhaled bronchodilator, inhaled corticosteroid, and oral corticosteroid), with explicit instructions on when and how to use these treatments depending on the severity and duration of their individual symptoms.

"Although some reports of symptoms differed between those taking budesonide daily and the other participants, these differences were not reflected in the quality-of-life scores,” noted lead author Homer Boushey, M.D., principal investigator at the University of California San Francisco (CA, USA). "Combined with the fact that there were no significant differences in lung function changes or in the frequency of severe attacks among the treatment groups after a year of treatment, we conclude that, overall, the three treatments had similar clinical effects in this study of mild asthma.” The results were published in the April 14, 2005, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The trial was conducted by researchers at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI, Bethesda, MD, USA). Asthma is considered mild and persistent when individuals have acute symptoms such as wheezing, coughing, or chest tightness more than twice a week but not daily, or have night-time awakenings due to asthma more than two nights a month.





Related Links:
U. C. San Francisco
NHLBI