COPD Treatment Also Effective Against Asthma

A new investigation has determined that adults who cannot keep their asthma in check by using reduced doses of corticosteroids can gain control of the disease by using a drug that is commonly prescribed to fight chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The new investigation was supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), through its National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

“This study’s results show that tiotropium bromide might provide an alternative to other asthma treatments, expanding options available to patients for controlling their asthma,” says scientist Susan B. Shurin, MD.

“The goal in managing asthma is to prevent symptoms so patients can pursue activities to the fullest,” adds the expert, who is also the Acting Director of the NHLBI.

The new findings were presented at the Annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society, which was recently held in Barcelona, Spain.

The work was also detailed online in September 19 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Science Blog reports.

The main conclusion of the investigation was that doubling inhaled corticosteroids doses alone was less effective in keeping asthma in check than adding the common drug tiotropium bromide to the same low doses that were initially prescribed.

“Tiotropium relaxes smooth muscle in the airways through a different mechanism than beta agonists, and thus may help people who do not respond well to currently recommended treatments,” explains expert Stephen Peters.

“Further analysis of the study data will help us better understand which patients respond best to tiotropium,” adds Peters, MD, PhD, who was the lead author of the investigation.

“Then we will need to conduct longer-term studies to establish its safety for asthma patients and to determine its effect on the frequency and severity of asthma exacerbations,” argues the expert, who is based at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The new investigation was conducted on about 210 adults, all of whom were asthma patients, and all of whom had a tough time keeping their disorder in check.

Adding the COPD drug to their drug mix improved the patients' conditions even when several asthma standards were considered. Doubling the corticosteroid doses did not yield such a pronounced effect.

“This is the first study to explore adding an anticholinergic inhaler to low-dose inhaled corticosteroids,” explains the director of the NHLBI Division of Lung Diseases, James Kiley, PhD.