Study challenges current treatment for m...( gs suggest that the NIH guidelines for ...),Health

"This study will need confirmation before the findings should change the standard of practice, but it suggests that adults with mild asthma may do about as well if they have the medication on hand and are advised to take them for a week or two just when their symptoms flare up."

About 20 million Americans suffer from asthma, with most experiencing symptoms that are considered "mild intermittent" or "mild persistent" -- requiring occasional use of beta agonists to relieve symptoms but causing few emergency department visits or hospitalizations. Opinion has been divided among experts as to how best to treat these conditions. In 1997, an expert NIH panel recommended daily use of inhaled steroids to prevent attacks, and theoretically, to counter the possibility of permanent, debilitating airway scarring which would further aggravate breathing. But only about 30 percent of patients who are prescribed inhaled steroids refill their prescriptions.

"The steroids do not provide immediate relief; that's the job of the beta agonists such as albuterol," Boushey explained. "Either because patients experience no obvious, immediate benefit, or because they are concerned about using inhaled steroids -- or some combination of reasons -- most people discontinue steroid use for asthma. Our study shows that for mild asthma, at least for the short term, this 'folk wisdom' is a safe practice.

"We can't say for sure though that inhaled corticosteroid treatment might not be good for preventing airway 'scarring' and progressive loss of pulmonary function in the long run. What we can say is that the patients in our study, who all had mild asthma, did not have many severe attacks, and did not seem to be losing
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Contact: Wallace Ravven
wravven@pubaff.ucsf.edu
415-476-2557
University of California - San Francisco
13-Apr-2005