Asthmatic patients on inhaled steroids benefit from influenza vaccine
Influenza vaccine has the ability to provide relief to patients already suffering from asthma, administered with inhaled steroids, and suffering from type A flu, according to Dr. Nicola Hanania, BCM assistant professor of medicine and director of the Asthma Clinical Research Center, from Baylor College of Medicine and findings presented in an issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
It was also remarked that safety against type B flu gets significantly minimized when patients take high doses of inhaled steroids.
From News-Medical.Net:
Hanania was the lead researcher among the six centers belonging to the American Lung Association-Asthma Clinical Research Centers Network that participated in this study. The study looked at 294 asthma patients who were randomly assigned to receive either the flu vaccine or a placebo (an inactive medication). Seventy-five percent of patients who received the vaccine were on steroids while 70 percent of those received placebo were on steroids.
The immune response of patients on steroids at all doses who received the vaccine was higher than that seen in patients on steroids who received placebo, said Hanania. However, patients on high doses of inhaled steroids had a lower immune response to type B influenza. A previously published study performed by this network confirmed the safety of influenza vaccine in children and adults with asthma.
It was further remarked by Hanania that the findings of this study reaffirm that physicians and patients must be assured of the fact that the influenza vaccine does offer protection against influenza in most of the asthmatic patients on inhaled steroids.
