Keep On Inhaling

A new study finds that the positive effects of steroid inhalers are not permanent

By Matthew M. F. Miller
CTW Features

Kids who experienced fewer asthma symptoms as a result of using steroid drugs did not benefit from those improvements once use of medicines was stopped, according to a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.

A four-plus-year clinical trial from the Childhood Asthma Management Program examined more than 1,000 children, 5-12, who were treated for mild to moderate asthma.

As written in the study, "The children in the randomized trial were divided into three groups: one received twice-daily budesonide, an inhaled corticosteroid medication; one received nedocromil, an inhaled non-steroid medication; and one group received a placebo. All children received albuterol, a bronchodilator and oral corticosteroids as needed for asthma symptoms."

Researchers followed-up with the study's subjects, who are now in their late teens, five years after completion and discovered that those who took the medicine showed no improvement in symptoms over those given the placebo.

"The interesting thing is that as kids with asthma get older, they actually do better," said Robert C. Strunk, M.D., a Washington University pediatrician at St. Louis Children's Hospital and lead author of the study. "We used to say they were outgrowing their asthma. What we know now is that as they go from being young children to age 20, their airways get bigger. They still have asthma but don't have as much trouble from it."

Although the patients had fewer symptoms five years after stopping the daily medication, Strunk says that doesn't mean they can stop using asthma medications altogether or that their asthma is cured.

Matthew M. F. Miller, author of “Maybe Baby: An Infertile Love Story” (HCI, 2008), is a syndicated fatherhood blogger

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