STEROIDS RESPOND DIFFERENTLY TO EVERY ASTHMA PATIENTAsthma treatment all depends upon what and how a child responds to various medications. The child needs to be strong enough to hold the effect of steroids which gives instant relief to the attack. Sometimes even a strong and healthy child can respond in an uncontrolled way to a steroid if used consistently.

As the studies from Child Asthma Management Program Continuation Study (CAMPCS) shows that out of 914 children only 20% of them were less likely to have a well controlled asthma on comparison with those who never used inhaling steroids. There were found to be many reasons for the unresponsive behavior of the steroid on the patient such as genetically the inhaled steroids can act in a much less responsive way.

From science daily:

Some children may not be able to keep their asthma under control even if they consistently report using inhaled corticosteroids, a mainstay of asthma treatment, suggests a new study.

Several studies of adults with asthma have suggested that even rigorous use of inhaled steroids doesn’t lead to well controlled asthma in all adults, Dr. Sawicki noted. “But this issue hasn’t been looked at closely in children,” he said. “Further studies are needed to see what is different about children who don’t respond to steroids, to see if there is a way to predict whether a child will respond to inhaled steroids.”

In addition, says researcher Gregory Sawicki, M.D. of Children’s Hospital in Boston, that severity of the disease can take over the shortcomings of medication and the inability to completely cure the disease.

Further there have also been studies if steroids were that effective in controlling asthma. It was seen that in adults the results were not that impressive unlike in children who were in a much more controlled state of disease.