Asthma Prophylactic Treatment

Asthma is a kind of disorder that badly affects the respiratory system of a person. When people have asthma attack, the airways swell and make air passage through them difficult. Asthma symptoms, as a result, are felt and they include; coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath and tightness in the chest. Asthma disorder has no cure and thus prevention is the only sure way of controlling it.

Estimations on the pathogenesis of bronchial asthma have changed significantly in recent years. An immunologic system to explain the state of bronchial hyper-responsiveness in asthmatic patients was not widely accepted in the past. With increasing knowledge of biochemical, immunologic and neurogenic systems, a better understanding of the patho-physiology of asthma has evolved. This has greatly encouraged investigators to develop modern drugs to control asthmatic symptoms. The prophylactic treatment of asthma consists of measures to control acute attacks and to prevent recurrences. The researchers are trying to present a comprehensive review of asthma prophylaxis in children. This study on prophylactic treatment includes environmental control, parent or patient education, physiotherapy or psychotherapy, allergy extract immunotherapy and drug prophylaxis.

The pharmacologic advantages, actions and disadvantages of drugs used for prophylaxis are discussed. An investigation of double-blind on the safety and efficacy of Ketotifen among Filipino asthmatic patients demonstrated beneficial results compared with other countries. An algorithm of the use of various prophylactic drugs in the prophylaxis of childhood asthma is presented. Prevention of asthma is only possible if people understand the disease. This is by coming to terms with the reasons and triggers in an individual case. One of the causes of asthma attack can be a family history of asthma. People will find that in families where acute asthma is more prevalent, the same happens down the generations. Other causes of asthma include smoking viral infections, irritants at work places and weather conditions. These conditions causes can also be for adult onset asthma. Eczema and other allergies can also cause the asthmatic condition.

Triggers of the asthma attack can either be dust, pollen, animals, exercise, sex, emotions, hormones, medication, molds, fungi and viral infections. A trigger of the disease is anything that irritates the airwaves causing an attack. There are various individual asthma disease cases. When people realize the asthma triggers in their case, prevention can be done by avoiding these triggers. In a randomized parallel-group double-blind study, six investigators enrolled 43 different subjects to study the prophylactic effect of 10 mg cetirizine on grass pollen induced bronchial asthma. The control group of the study received 60 mg terfenadine, given to avoid withdrawals from the trial because of hay fever symptoms.

Subjects of the cases were included in the study of prophylactic treatment for the first symptoms of hay fever and those of pollen-induced asthma. The bronchial asthma and hay fever symptoms, visual analogue scores, FEV1 and self-assessment data on complaints, salvage treatment and peak-flow values were statistically analyzed. Both the diseases were well tolerated with prophylactic treatments, with a low and similar incidence of side-effects. Six of the 19 subjects of the study on cetirizine who were evaluable for efficacy remained free of asthma complaints, and another two (10%) had only a single minor attack.

• Emma Bullock
• 05/01/2009, 2:59 AM
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