Asthma victims can benefit from steroids

According to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and other institutions, asthmatics can benefit to a significant extent when doses of steroids are increased or more drugs are added to the steroid treatment.

Robert C. Strunk, M.D., and Leonard B. Bacharier, M.D., both Washington University pediatric asthma specialists at St. Louis Children's Hospital were co-authors for this study.

From Sciencedaily.com:

"We used a few complicated and expensive tests we thought would help us determine which drug would be better, but they didn't help, so we can avoid these tests," says Strunk, the Donald Strominger Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine.
Although 98 percent of patients in the study showed improvement on at least one of the step-up options, there were still 120 asthma exacerbations, or attacks, among the 165 patients that required treatment with prednisone, a corticosteroid commonly used after an exacerbation that prevents the release of inflammatory substances in the body. Bacharier says that indicates none of these treatments provide perfect asthma control.
"There may not be an ideal therapy for every patient, but these step-up treatments allow for improved asthma control and outcomes over leaving them on low-dose steroids alone," Bacharier says.

This study was published online March 2, 2010, by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented the same day at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology's annual meeting in New Orleans.