Schering Plough, a global healthcare company recently announced their latest fixed dose combination for the treatment of asthma patients 12 years of age and above. The combination of mometasone furoate and formoterol fumarate is expected to bring in more sales for the company. Products containing a combination of inhaled corticosteroid and long acting beta-2 agonists (LABs) are the biggest segment in the market.

Mometasone furoate is an inhaled corticosteroid for the maintenance treatment of asthma. It is not recommended for children below 4 years old. On the other hand, formoterol fumarate is a beta-2 agonist, also used for maintenance treatment of asthma patients 5 years and up. Both drugs are not recommended as rescue inhalers, therefore, they are not recommended for use in acute symptoms of asthma.

The company filed a new drug application in the United States Food and Drug Administration for this particular combination. It has been accepted for review and they are hoping that it would be approved for use and distribution in the market. The company owns exclusive rights for manufacturing and distribution of mometasone furoate and formoterol fumarate. This combination comes in a single metered-dose inhaler.

From Medical News Today:

“We are pleased to announce the U.S. filing of the fixed-dose combination of mometasone furoate and formoterol fumarate,” said Thomas P. Koestler, Ph. D., executive vice president and president, Schering-Plough Research Institute. “If approved by the FDA, the mometasone fuorate/formoterol combination would represent an important additional treatment option for physicians and their patients and further strengthen Schering-Plough’s portfolio of respiratory products.”

Tags:  asthma, formoterol fumarate, mometasone furoate

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

The potential battle in the war of asthma symptom control can be a psychological one, as per a recently concluded study.

The study went on to reveal that the primary reason why many asthmatic children in the United States do not take their medications as per medical advice is the leeriness of their parents for asthma medications.

Kelly Conn, M.P.H., a senior research coordinator at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author of the study, said that asthmatic children can get virtually free from all such symptoms with modern-day preventive medications.

From News-Medical.Net:

To see if parents’ beliefs about their children’s medicines might be influencing how dependably they administered the drugs, the Rochester team analyzed data from parents of 622 children in Southeast Michigan who reported use of at least one preventive asthma medication.

First, parents were asked to complete a Beliefs About Medications Questionnaire (BMQ), a survey that measures two often-conflicting realms of parents’ perceptions of their children’s medications – the necessity, or the extent to which they believed a child’s sickness necessitated taking it, versus the concern, or the extent to which a parent worried about possible risks associated with the drugs, such as side effects and potential for dependency.

Not unlike a “cost-benefit” analysis, a differential score was calculated by subtracting the concern score from the necessity score; this served as a weighed appraisal of each parent’s beliefs.

“We knew that parents often hold opposing attitudes on this issue, almost instinctively. It’s only natural to be caught between worrying about possible dangers related to the medicine and worrying the risks posed by the asthma itself,” Conn said.

The survey showed that, for 77 percent of parents, their perceived need for their child’s medication outweighed concerns about any possible risks. However, 17 percent – one in six parents – composed the opposite camp; they were more concerned about the drugs’ potential to affect harm than they were convinced of their child’s need for them.

Conn further remarked that these findings provide a new paradigm to improve the control of symptoms by just addressing the doubts and worries of parents of asthmatic children. He also said that things can be made better by providing accurate information about side-effects of the medications.

Tags:  asthma, asthma medications, asthma symptom control

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

As per scientists from the UT Southwestern Medical Center, addition of corticosteroids to the traditional antimicrobial therapy is an effective option for helping pneumonia patients with quicker recovery than persisting with antibiotics alone.

It was remarked by Dr. Robert Hardy, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and the study’s senior author that while antibiotics are good enough to kill the bug, steroids play an important role for treating lung inflammation.

From News-Medical.Net:

In the current study, mice infected with the M pneumoniae bacterium were treated daily with a placebo, an antibiotic, a steroid, or a combination of the antibiotic and steroid in order to investigate the effect on M pneumoniae-induced airway inflammation. The animals were then evaluated after one, three and six days of therapy.

“It turns out that the group that got both the antibiotic and the steroids did the best,” Dr. Hardy said. “The inflammation in their lungs got significantly better.”

Although antimicrobials remain the primary therapy for M pneumoniae infection, there have been several reports in recent years about physicians adding steroids to the treatment regimen of patients with severe cases, Dr. Hardy said. The problem, he said, is that those were individual case reports.

“They never had a control group, so it was impossible to tell what impact the addition of steroids had on recovery,” he said.

The new findings not only suggest that giving antibiotics with steroids can help individuals with pneumonia get better faster, but also suggest a potentially more effective therapy for someone in the midst of an asthma attack due to M pneumoniae infection. Up to 20 percent of asthma attacks in children and adults have been shown to be triggered by this bacterium.

Dr. Hardy said it’s too early to recommend steroids as standard treatment for people with this type of bacterial pneumonia, but the work does support the need for a clinical trial.

It was suggested that this treatment methodology can open up the doors of a potentially new and effective treatment therapy for patients in the midst of an asthma attack also, which is caused by M pneumoniae infection.

Tags:  antibiotics, antimicrobial therapy, asthma, corticosteroids, M pneumoniae bacterium, pneumonia, Steroids

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

According to a study by researchers from the National Jewish Health, being overweight or obese does not put asthma patients under any greater risk than their leaner counterparts though obese asthmatic patients may be slower in relation to medication response.

As per lead author E. Rand Sutherland, Associate Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health, an improvement in asthmatic condition may not necessarily happen from loss of weight. It was also remarked by the lead author that obese patients may be slower than their leaner counterparts to respond to inhaled corticosteroids, which are the most popular asthma controller medications.

From News-Medical.Net:

Dr. Sutherland and his colleagues decided to examine the issue in a well characterized group of 1,256 patients who had participated in NIH-sponsored studies. They divided them into patients with a body mass index of less than 25 (lean) and greater than or equal to 25 (overweight and obese). They found that lean asthma patients had slightly greater forced expiratory volume in one second, or FEV1 (3.05 liters vs 2.91 liters), and slightly greater ratio of FEV1 to forced vital capacity (83.5% vs. 82.4%), both common measures of lung function. They also found slightly greater use of rescue inhalers among overweight patients (1.2 puffs per day vs. 1.1 puffs per day) and slightly higher scores asthma-relate quality of life questionnaires (5.77 vs. 5.59).

“These differences were small and are unlikely to be of any real clinical significance,” said Dr. Sutherland.

Response to medications, however, did show an effect of increased weight. Among a subgroup of 183 people, lean patients taking inhaled corticosteroids alone showed a 55% greater reduction in exhaled nitric oxide, a measure of inflammation. Lean patients taking a combination inhaled steroid and long-acting beta agonist increased their FEV1 by 80 more milliliters. There were no differences, however, between these patients in the number of asthma exacerbations.

“The data suggest overweight and obese people respond less well to controller medications for asthma than do their lean counterparts,” said Dr. Sutherland. “These data come from already-completed studies designed to answer other questions, however, and ongoing studies are being conducted to more definitively determine the effect of increased weight on treatment response in asthma.”

The study, however, was not sure how and why an increased body weight did not intervene in worsening asthma.

Tags:  asthma, asthmatic patients, inhaled corticosteroids, medication for asthma, obese asthma patients

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

The use of inhaled steroids increased significantly in asthmatic women pregnant with a female fetus, but did not change in asthmatic women pregnant with a male. This is because pregnant women with asthma who are carrying a female baby are more likely to experience a worsening of their asthma than pregnant asthmatic women carrying a baby boy.

Although there is no definite reason for this difference, Dr. Gibson believes that female fetus may produce a substance in response to the inflammation of the asthmatic mother’s airways that somehow worsens the asthma.

From Medical News Today:

The study followed 151 pregnant women; 33 did not have asthma, 38 had asthma but did not use inhaled steroids during pregnancy, and 80 had asthma and used inhaled steroids every day during their pregnancy. Steroids control the inflammation of the airways that occurs in asthma. “Inhaled steroids are generally considered safer for the fetus than oral steroids,” Dr. Gibson said.

He found that 60% of asthmatic women who were pregnant with a male fetus were symptom-free throughout their pregnancy and did not report nighttime breathing problems from the 18th to the 30th week of pregnancy. In contrast, 61% of asthmatic women pregnant with a female fetus were symptom-free at 18 weeks, but at 30 weeks only 28% were symptom-free. Nighttime symptoms increased significantly from 18 to 30 weeks in women pregnant with a female fetus.

Use of inhaled steroids increased significantly in asthmatic women pregnant with a female fetus, but did not change in asthmatic women pregnant with a male.

In order to address this condition, Dr. Gibson suggests that pregnant women should continue to treat their asthma with inhaled corticosteroids. According to him, asthma is dangerous to the mother and baby since it can result in reduced oxygen, which is needed for normal fetal growth and development.

Tags:  asthma, Dr. Gibson, female fetus, inhaled steroids, pregnant asthmatic women

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

A US research led by Dr Michael Schatz showed that asthmatic pregnant women should continue their inhaled steroids. According to Dr. Schatz, inhaled steroids during pregnancy do not affect the growth of the fetus inside the womb, where as non-medication could result to greater risks on the health of the babies.

The US study looked at the effect of inhaled steroids on the birth weight of children of women with asthma. Researchers compared the birth weights of around 400 babies whose mothers used a range of inhaled steroids for their asthma throughout pregnancy.

From Medical news today:

Inhaled steroids have no effect on the growth of babies in the womb, according to a new study that should offer reassurance for pregnant women with asthma.

But many people with asthma have concerns about their medication: Asthma UK research shows more than 50% are worried about the long-term side effects of steroid treatment, including a possible impact on growth.

‘This study provides reassuring data that specific inhaled steroids do not lead to a restriction in fetal growth,’ said Dr Michael Schatz of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, San Diego, who led the research.

Katie Shepherd, Asthma UK’s Care Development Manager, echoed this: ‘It is most important that asthma is well controlled throughout pregnancy. Where inhaled steroids have been prescribed, women with asthma should feel safe taking them, as under-treated asthma can pose a much greater risk to the health of their fetus.’

The study proved that there were no differences between the range of birth weights of the children born to women who undergo treatment and those who are in healthy condition. Also, there were no differences in the numbers of pre-term births or the incidence of low birth weight children. In conclusion, inhaled steroids on pregnant women are safe on both mothers and their babies.

Tags:  asthma, Dr Michael Schatz, inhaled steroids, pregnancy

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC researchers have identified cells that have the unique capability of playing a critical role in some forms of steroid-resistance asthma, which is a complication that has the effect of creating hassles in treating asthma.

Jay K. Kolls, MD, chief of the Division of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Allergy and Immunology at Children’s Hospital and study’s senior author, said that scientists can develop new forms of asthma control management and treatment with the identification of T Helper Type 17 (Th17).

These findings are expected to benefit more than 11 million Americans who have been diagnosed with steroid-resistant asthma.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“Asthma is a challenging condition to treat. For many patients, if they take preventive medications regularly, the condition can be controlled and they can lead relatively normal lives,” Dr. Kolls said. “Inhaled steroids are an important treatment for patients to prevent asthma attacks. Unfortunately, some patients have attacks despite the use of inhaled steroids, meaning they don’t respond to steroids or they need such high doses that side effects are experienced.”

In a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Immunology, Dr. Kolls and colleagues found that Th17 cells mediated steroid-resistant airway inflammation and hyper-responsiveness in animal models of asthma. Th17 cells are part of the immune system and are found where the body comes in contact with the external environment, such as the lungs and the lining of the gastrointestinal tract.

“Identifying Th17 cells as a potential mechanism by which steroid-resistant asthma gives us a potential new target for the development of drugs that focus on these cells and lead to better overall control of asthma,” said Dr. Kolls, the Niels K. Jerne Professor of Pediatrics and Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.”

This study is seen as a positive step towards finding a potential new target for development of drugs that can lead to an effective asthma management. It is further believed that these findings have the capabilities of change the forms of treatment concerned with steroid-resistant asthma.

Tags:  asthma, asthma control, steroid-resistant asthma, Steroids, treating asthma

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

As per a study conducted as a part of the Cochrane Systematic Review by a team of researchers including Professor Brian Rowe and Carol Spooner, a short course of corticosteroids can help in minimizing the chances of an asthma attack relapse to a considerable extent.

The study also revealed that administering steroids to asthma patients after their discharge from the hospital can also help in minimizing the use of inhalers for approximately a period of three weeks.

From Bio-Medicine.Org:

As part of the study, researchers analyzed data in six trials that together involved 374 people.

The study found that between 12 percent and 16 percent of people who were discharged from hospital after having asthma attack had a relapse within two weeks.

There is considerable debate about the best way of treating people who have asthma attacks, including the dose, method of delivery and timing of delivery of corticosteroids. Our research found clear evidence that people who arrived at a hospital with acute asthma and were well enough to be discharged benefited from the addition of corticosteroid therapy, Rowe said.

Spooner remarked that the findings will offer great relief to acute asthma patients. It was also remarked that the addition of systemic corticosteroids in treatment of outpatients is expected to be an effective form of treatment going forward.

Tags:  acute asthma, asthma, corticosteroids, inhalers, systemic corticosteroids

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

Asthma 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.

Tags:  asthma, inhaled steroids

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions