People with severe asthma are often classified as being ‘steroid-dependent’-but new research has discovered that the drugs are not working.
In fact, asthmatics taking corticosteroids are suffering from greater airway obstruction than other sufferers not taking the drugs.
In a new trial called U-Biopred, researchers from Imperial College London have taken samples from 300 children and 700 adults with severe to moderate asthma and compared them to healthy people. They have discovered that 55 per cent of adults with severe asthma are not being helped by the drugs. Their airway obstruction was greater than in someone with mild asthma, and they were still suffering severe symptoms despite taking the powerful drugs.
In short, they aren’t responding to the drugs, but nobody knows why, the researchers say.
(Source: European Respiratory Society annual congress, September 9, 2013).
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