Previous studies have suggested that asthma can impair lung growth during childhood, leading to reduced pulmonary function in adulthood. The researchers recruited 1,041 children with mild asthma, ages 5 to 12 years, and randomly assigned them to be treated with either the inhaled steroid budesonide, the non-steroid nedocomil or a placebo. They also provided each patient with bronchodilator asthma medicines as needed. Neither medication improved lung growth. The doctors also discovered that the steroidal drugs provided better treatment than the non-steroidal drugs or placebo in terms of significantly reducing the number of hospitalizations and urgent care visits, as well as the need for additional asthma medications.
Parents are understandably cautious about treatments for their children that are in any way risky.
This study provides some reassurance about the safety of this most effective class of asthma drugs. Hopefully, it will also change prescribing habits of physicians who have been reluctant to use inhaled steroids in milder asthmatic children. Between 12 million and 15 million people, including close to 5 million children, in the United States have asthma. Asthma is a chronic disease through which airflow in and out of the lungs may be blocked by muscle squeezing, swelling and excess mucus. In 1997, more than 30.5 million prescriptions were filled for asthma medication, and patients had approximately 1.2 million emergency room visits and 445,000 hospitalization days.