Asthma is a chronic inflammatory respiratory disease. Anti-inflammatory therapy\u00a0with inhaled glucocorticosteroids is considered\u00a0the most effective long-term therapy for moderate and severe forms of chronic asthma. Side-effects constitute the only limitation of this therapy.\u00a0The purpose of our study was to find out whether long-term administration of inhaled glucocorticosteroids for asthma has an immunosuppressive\u00a0side effect. We studied the frequency and severity of respiratory infections in asthmatic children\u00a0treated with long-term inhaled glucocorticosteroids and in children with asthma receiving no\u00a0such therapy. Our hypothesis was that long-term\u00a0therapy with inhaled glucocorticosteroids for\u00a0asthma has an imunosupressive side effect and\u00a0that asthmatic children given long-term therapy\u00a0with inhaled glucocorticosteroids suffer more frequent and more severe respiratory infections\u00a0than children with asthma receiving no such
\nmedication.\u00a0This one-year prospective study included 20 children with mild and moderate asthma, aged\u00a07 years 0 months to 14 years 11 months (average 9 years, 4 months. There were 7 girls and\u00a013 boys. The children were divided into two\u00a0groups (n = 10): one group receiving long-term\u00a0therapy with inhaled glucocorticosteroids (fluticasone propionate) and another group given no\u00a0such therapy. Because of moral, ethical and\u00a0medical principles a non-random grouping of children was used in this study. The children, helped by their parents, kept a diary of symptoms\u00a0and clinical signs of respiratory infection and\u00a0asthma, and measured their peak expiratory flow\u00a0rate and body temperature. In the event of occurrence of symptoms and clinical signs of respiratory infection, they were asked to visit the\u00a0out-patient clinic for pulmonary diseases, Department of Paediatrics, for the evaluation of infection.\u00a0Asthmatic children receiving no long-term therapy\u00a0with inhaled glucocorticoids had a total of 26 respiratory infections (median- 2.5 respiratory infections\/child\/year), lasting for a total of 207 days\u00a0(median- 6 days\/respiratory infection), 9 of them\u00a0were severity grade 1, 13 grade 2, and 4 grade 3.\u00a0Children with asthma placed on long-term therapy\u00a0with inhaled glucocorticosteroids had a total of\u00a027 respiratory infections (median- 3 respiratory\u00a0infections\/child\/year), lasting for a total of 198 days\u00a0(median 7 days\/respiratory infection), 12 of them\u00a0severity grade 1, 13 grade 2, and 2 grade 3. There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in the parameters studied.\u00a0The Wilcoxon’s signed-rang test was used for the\u00a0statistical analysis (p > 0,05).\u00a0On the basis of the results of our study we are\u00a0not able to conclude, that long-term administration of low-dose (200\u03bcg\/day) inhaled glucocoticosteroids (fluticasone propionate) increases\u00a0the frequency and severity of respiratory infections in children with asthma, and hence can’t\u00a0conclude that it has clinically relevant imunosupresive effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory respiratory disease. Anti-inflammatory therapy\u00a0with inhaled glucocorticosteroids is considered\u00a0the most effective long-term therapy for moderate and severe forms of chronic asthma. Side-effects constitute the only limitation of this therapy.\u00a0The purpose of our study was to find out whether long-term administration of inhaled glucocorticosteroids for asthma has an immunosuppressive\u00a0side effect. We studied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[335,425,813,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-1999-archive","category-infectious-diseases","category-infekcijske-bolezni-en","category-pediatrics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n