Wheezing not effectively treatable with steroids
Thursday 18, Feb 2010
Steroid tablets cannot be considered to be an effective form of treatment for offering relief to young children, especially pre-school children, suffering from wheezing induced by virus.
The finding was revealed by a research that involved medical experts at The University of Nottingham. Leading researchers from the universities of Nottingham, Leicester and Bart’s in London were at the center of a leading study to ascertain if steroids are useful for relieving symptoms of wheezing in children under the age of five.
From News-Medical.Net:
There has been ongoing controversy in the medical community regarding how to best treat pre-school children who are admitted to hospital with severe wheezing. Steroids remain an important treatment for children with asthma but pre-school children with viral-induced wheeze, where symptoms are only associated with colds or flu and do not persist when the child is not infected with a virus, have also been treated with steroids in the past. This trial, funded by Asthma UK and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, definitively shows that steroid tablets do not help these children.
The research was carried out by Dr Alan Smyth, Associate Professor and Reader in Child Health, and Terence Stephenson, Professor of Child Health, at The University of Nottingham in collaboration with Dr Monica Lakhanpaul, Senior Lecturer from the University of Leicester and Consultant Paediatrician in Children’s Community Health Service for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland and Professor Jonathan Grigg of Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Dr Mike Thomas, Chief Medical Advisor for Asthma UK, welcoming the study remarked that the study results offer crucial implications for members of the medical community.
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