Inhaled Steroids Reduce Asthma Deaths

A large-scale study of 30,569 asthma patients has found that regular use of low-dose inhaled corticosteroids reduced the risk of death. The study, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine (2000;343:332-336), was conducted by researchers at McGill University in Montreal (Canada) and colleagues.

Although steroids have been widely used to reduce inflammation in the airways of asthma patients, little has been known about their influence on mortality. In the current study, the researchers tracked asthma patients, five through 44 years of age, who were using antiasthma drugs during the period from 1975 through 1991, following the subjects to the end of 1997. About 93% of the prescribed canisters of inhaled corticosteroids contained low-dose beclomethasone. The researchers found that the rate of death from asthma among users of inhaled steroids as compared with nonusers was reduced by about 50% with the use of more than six canisters per year.

The mean number of canisters used was 1.18 for the patients who died and 1.57 for the controls. Based on their analysis, the researchers calculated that the rate of death from asthma decreased by 21% with each additional canister of inhaled steroids used in the previous year. Furthermore, the death rate from asthma in the first three months after discontinuing steroid use was higher than among patients who continued the drugs.