Reduced Steroid Dose Combined With Other Drugs Found to Control Asthma

Modest doses of inhaled steroids combined with other drugs control asthma as well as or better than high doses of steroids, while reducing the risk of side effects from long-term use, according to two studies in today’s New England Journal of Medicine. Steroids reduce the frequency of asthma attacks. But daily use over a few years has been linked to osteoporosis and cataracts in older adults and slowed growth in children. Asthma afflicts about 15 million Americans.

One of the studies looked at formoterol, an inhaled airway-relaxing type of drug known as a long-acting beta-2-agonist, in combination with the inhaled steroid budesonide. In the second, researchers compared patients treated with high doses of budesonide with those getting a moderate dose of budesonide plus theophylline--a bronchodilator that relaxes the airways. Both new treatments were as effective as high-dose steroids.