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| |  Inhaled Corticosteroids Can Prevent Hospitalisation in Children Presenting to ER With Asthmatic Distress: Presented at AAAAI By Carole VanSickle Ellis NEW ORLEANS -- March 2, 2010 -- Physicians may prevent hospitalisation of paediatric patients presenting to the emergency room (ER) with severe asthmatic distress by using inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) instead of other systemic corticosteroids (SCS), according to a study presented here at the 2010 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) Annual Meeting on February 28. Current guidelines require albuterol and systemic steroids delivered orally or by intravenous injection for children presenting to the ER with severe asthmatic distress or acute asthma exacerbation. However, inhaled corticosteroids may also be an option. “My team’s study indicates that fewer patients treated with ICS undergo hospitalisation after the treatment,” said Rabia Quddus Chaundhry, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, Piscataway, New Jersey. “This indicates that ICS may be more effective than SCS in preventing hospital admission and hospitalisation following emergency department treatment.” The team established their results by performing a systemic review of 10 published, randomised clinical trials involving 1,023 children and adolescents, aged 6 months to 18 years, presenting to the ER with acute asthma exacerbation. The effectiveness of SCS and ICS in the subsequent treatment of acute asthma exacerbation was analysed using hospitalisation rate as the primary outcome. The placebo group had the highest hospitalisation rate with 23.3% to 48.7%, followed by SCS treatment with 10.2% to 30.4%. Patients treated with ICS were significantly less likely to be hospitalised than those treated with SCS, with percentages of admission from 0% to 31.4%. The research team concluded that in an emergency department setting, ICS are certainly beneficial for the treatment of acute paediatric asthma exacerbations. The team noted that the study could potentially be limited by the variation in the sample sizes of the studies, the differences in the ages of the patients, and the medications used since they varied in entrance route and brand name. [Presentation title: Efficacy of Inhaled Compared to Oral Corticosteroids for Acute Asthma Exacerbation in Children. Abstract 271]
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