Asthma symptoms can be eased with inhaled corticosteroids
Children and adults suffering from asthma can manage their ailment effectively apart from breathing deeper with inhaled corticosteroids than with the medicine cromolyn, as per a review of recent studies comparing the two treatments.
James Guevara, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues, said that the study highlighted that patients administered with steroids scored better on tests of lung function apart from making less use of inhalers than those administered with cromolyn.
From News-Medical.Net:
“Any expert would agree that inhaled corticosteroids are preferred first-line therapy for treatment of persistent asthma, which requires daily therapy. But we also will agree with the NIH [National Institutes of Health] asthma guidelines, which state that cromolyn and other drugs are alternative therapies,” Storms said.
Cromolyn, or sodium cromoglycate, and inhaled corticosteroids both block the action of certain inflammatory cells in the lungs. Physicians recommend both types of medication for persistent asthma, but individual studies disagree about which type of medication works best, the reviewers found.
“The safety of sodium cromoglycate has been well established, but the effectiveness of sodium cromoglycate in controlling asthma symptoms may be limited,” Guevara said, adding that the lack of effective control might be one reason cromolyn has fallen out of favor compared to inhaled corticosteroids since the 1990s.
Guevara further remarked that the review was considered to be the first systematic review evaluating the effects of cromolyn to the gold standard, inhaled steroids. The review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, which is a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration.
