Latest Asthma Treatment Developments
A new, radical, medicine for asthma able to keep under control episodes even when the patient has a cold is being worked in and tested by specialists.
The inhalers used by now are no longer considered sufficiently affective in case of a viral respiratory infection, so that a new formula is required.50% of the persons with asthma proves that their rescue medication loses efficiency when a viral infection is involved, which may cause them hospitalization or even death. In the UK 1500 people die every year because of asthma attacks. Most of these people need hospitalization because of viral inflations so a new way of treatment seems necessary.
A professor of the Imperial College London and the Medical UK Center in Allergic Mechanisms of asthma, Sebastian Johnson states that, in his opinion it is possible to develop the inhalers, so that they may be able to provide proteins to the lungs in cold tones of the year. He also says that, according to the nature of their disease, asthmatics are predisposed to these viral infections that, in their turn provoke asthma episodes.
His tests on volunteers, both healthy and asthmatic brought to light that they are not produced with the needed efficacy in asthmatics. “The discovery of this mechanism could be of huge importance in how we treat asthma attacks. Delivery of the deficient interferon by inhalers could be an ideal way to treat and prevent the attacks of asthma, potentially vastly improving the quality of life for many asthma patients. These treatments would be used in the context of preventing or treating attacks caused by a cold. There is usually one or two days between a cold starting and the attack, so there is a warming. These attacks are more than the day-to-day variation experienced by asthmatics. They are something that persists despite the use of medication”, he says.