BACKGROUND Differences could exist in the likelihood of asthma attacks in patients treated with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS), long-acting beta-agonist (LABA), and montelukast (MON) (ICS/LABA/MON) and patients treated with an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and montelukast (MON) (ICS/MON). METHODS This was a post-hoc analysis of a pretest-posttest retrospective cohort study. Patients with mild pe...

Corticosteroid insensitivity represents a major barrier to the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and severe asthma. It is caused by oxidative stress, leading to reduced histone deacetylase-2 (HDAC2) function through activation of phosphoinositide-3-kinase(PI3K ). The tricyclic antidepressant nortriptyline has been identified in high-throughput screens as an agent that in...

T he concept that there may be heterogeneity of the underlying pathology of asthma has a long pedigree: 80 years ago, Rackemann suggested that a subgroup of patients with intrinsic asthma had disease driven by bacterial infection of the upper and lower respiratory tract and the authors of an early postmortem study were struck by the heterogeneity of lower airway inflammatory response in fatal a...

BACKGROUND Asthma is characterised by chronic airway inflammation, a complex cascade of events, mostly sustained by eosinophil recruitment and activation. Fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is a surrogate marker of airway inflammation closely associated with bronchial eosinophilia. FeNO is used to define asthma phenotype, to assess eosinophilic inflammatory severity and to predict corticost...

BACKGROUND Asthma exacerbations contribute substantially to morbidity, and their reduction is an important therapeutic objective. In this integrated analysis the risk of asthma exacerbations was assessed during treatment with the leukotriene receptor antagonist zafirlukast. METHODS Data were collected from all five double blind, multicentre, randomised, placebo controlled, 13 week trials of z...

BACKGROUND Drug benefit policies are an important determinant of a population's use of prescription drugs. This study was undertaken to determine whether a change in a provincial drug benefit policy, from a fixed deductible and copayment system to an income-based deductible system, resulted in changes in receipt of prescriptions for inhaled corticosteroids by Manitoba children with asthma. ME...

Background Chronic conditions such as asthma are usually stigmatized as one of the reasons for short stature. A widespread belief also is that prolonged long-term treatment with corticosteroids will lead to elevated body weight and also could lead to short stature. Therefore we evaluated the height and weight status in the children admitted in the hospital for asthma attack regarding the asthma...

BACKGROUND Cigarette smokers with asthma are insensitive to short term inhaled corticosteroid therapy, but efficacy when given for a longer duration at different doses is unknown. METHODS Ninety five individuals with mild asthma were recruited to a multicentre, randomised, double blind, parallel group study comparing inhaled beclomethasone in doses of 400 microg or 2000 microg daily for 12 we...