Study: Steroids Ease Lung Disease Symptoms

Dec. 28 -- Inhaled steroids widely used to treat emphysema and otherdegenerative respiratory ailments do not slow the progression ofthe disease but can ease the symptoms during flare-ups, agovernment study found.

Steroids reduced urgent doctor’s visits, hospitalizations andairway sensitivity to cold and other irritants.

But long use caused two side effects: increased skin bruisingand loss of bone density.

The study looked at chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, whichincludes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. It progressively reduceshow much air the lungs can hold and is considered largelyuntreatable.

Doctors had hypothesized that inhaled steroids widely used forasthma might slow progression of chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease by reducing airway inflammation. But the researchers foundno significant difference in lung function decline.

One Fourth Fewer Flare-Ups

However, the patients who used steroids had about one-fourthfewer flare-ups of breathing difficulty, just over half as manydoctor’s visits and less airway sensitivity to irritants.

The study was published in today’s New England Journal ofMedicine.

About 560 patients with a moderate form of the disease took sixpuffs of medicine from an inhaler twice a day for more than threeyears. A comparison group inhaled a dummy solution.

Dr. Robert A. Wise, a pulmonary disease specialist at JohnsHopkins University who helped lead the study, said the findingsmean that inhaled steroids still have a role in treating patientswith frequent symptoms of the deadly lung disease. But he said theyshould be given calcium and vitamin D supplements.

“This is really going to be an individual decision between thepatient and physician,” said Dr. Norman H. Edelman, dean of themedical school at the State University of New York at Stony Brookand a consultant to the American Lung Association.

About 16 million Americans have chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease, the nation’s No. 4 cause of death and No. 2 cause ofdisability.