Is Early Treatment of Asthma Useful?
In the last few years some prominent researchers interested in adult (22, 25) and childhood (62) asthma have suggested that early intervention with inhaled glucocorticosteroids in asthmatics leads to a better long-term outcome. The first study suggesting the importance of early intervention compared the effect of long-term treatment with an inhaled 2 agonist (terbutaline) with an inhaled glucocorticoid (budesonide) in patients with newly diagnosed asthma (63). Two years of treatment with budesonide were more effective than treatment with terbutaline in patients with newly diagnosed, generally mild asthma (63). In another study by the same group, patients who had received terbutaline for 2 yr were treated with budesonide for a third year (22). The airway function of patients who were switched from terbutaline therapy to treatment with budesonide improved. However, the degree of improvement in these patients appeared to be less than in those who had been treated with budesonide from the
