Treating toddlers with inhaled steroid medications temporarily relieved their wheezing but didn’t prevent them from developing asthma, according to a nationwide study.
The results of the three-year Prevention of Early Asthma in Kids study, published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, disappointed researchers who had hoped to find a way to prevent asthma.
The study does offer guidance for physicians who have been uncertain whether the inhaled medications would be effective for very young children.
“Kids on active treatment did better in the two years they were on treatment, but that was not the prime goal,” said Dr. Gary Larsen, head of the pediatric respiratory disease division at National Jewish Medical and Research Center.
National Jewish was one of seven centers participating in the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
For the 285 preschoolers in the study, the benefit lasted only as long as they continued taking the medications.
The same was true for side effects. The children on the medication were 1 centimeter behind in growth, compared with children on the placebo.
But after they stopped taking the medication, “the growth difference seemed to disappear,” Larsen said.
Nine million children in the U.S. have asthma, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an average year, those children are hospitalized 250,000 times, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America reports.
Children 4 and younger have the highest rates of hospitalization and emergency-room visits for asthma, according to the CDC.
To be eligible for the study, children had to be considered at high risk for developing asthma, for reasons including episodes of wheezing, eczema and a family history of asthma.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-820-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
