The results of two studies on patients taking an experimental anti-inflammatory drug produced by GlaxoSmithKline Plc as a consequence of severe asthma attacks showed promising effects.
With this drug, the patients suffered half as much from asthma attacks and those with acute illness relied less on steroids.
The drug which is currently being experimented by Glaxo, it is also used to cure another fatal blood disorder, hypereosinophilic syndrome.
Although this drug can lessen probable deadly asthma attacks, strangely enough, it does little to improve symptoms or enhance the functioning of the lungs.
The results thus show that asthma attacks and symptoms are not related as experts thought in the past.
The drug does substantially reduce attacks in those patients who at least once a month, are rushed to the emergency unit for treatment.
Those patients suffering from acute asthma conditions do not react as well to the standard asthma drugs used by other patients with less severe conditions.
During the study patients were treated with both a placebo and the experimental drug for a period of over twelve months, the results showed that those treated with the drug had less risk of having an asthma attack as opposed to those with the placebo. These patients also considerably lessened their consumption of steroids.
The study has to be carried on to discover the potentials of this drug, though these results show that inflammatory cells greatly affect these asthma attacks, and by reducing inflammation, attacks will also diminish.
