New Technique for More-Effective Asthma Treatment

A research study has found a new technique for producing corticosteroids between one and five micrometers promising for use in small inhalers. Moreover, it could lead to reducing the dose emitted from metered or dry powder inhalers by 80% without losing any clinical effect. The study was conducted by researchers at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) and University Hospital Utrecht (also in The Netherlands).

With conventional inhalation devices for asthma medication, only a fraction of the inhaled drug reaches the lower airways where it has therapeutic effect. A large part is deposited in the mouth and throat and then swallowed, to be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract. This low efficiency is related to the size of the particles released, although newer inhalers show improved distribution. Research has demonstrated that, in adults, monodisperse 2.8-um broncodilator particles are optimal in terms of efficacy and their use can reduce the dose emitted by 80%. Present systems to monodisperse, however, are cumbersome and confined to a laboratory environment.

The current study centered on a means to monodisperse. The researchers found that a new technique called electrohydrodynamic atomization (EHDA) was able to produce monodisperse droplets of a defined size in the micrometer range with a low geometric standard deviation and in quantities sufficiently high to make administration to patients feasible. They say that an aerosol generator that employs electric fields instead of compressed air could lead to a revolution in inhalation therapy, ensuring greater efficacy that will ultimately benefit patients. The research was published in the December 2001 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.



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Univ. of Utrecht