Asthma Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Asthma, including details on symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, causes, medications.

Intramuscular triamcinolone for difficult asthma.

Panickar JR, Kenia P, Silverman M, Grigg J

Leicester Children's Asthma Centre, Department of Child Health, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.

We treated a selected group of children attending a difficult asthma clinic with intramuscular triamcinolone acetonide. This study retrospectively reviews markers of asthma severity in those who received one or more monthly doses for three periods: 1) 3 months preceding the first injection (pretreatment), 2) from the first injection to 1 month after the last injection (treatment period), and 3) 3 months after the treatment period (follow-up period). Severity markers during the treatment and follow-up periods were compared with the pretreatment period by paired t-test. Five children (5-13 years old) received a single dose, and 8 children (12-15 years old) received multiple doses. Multiple doses of triamcinolone (n = 3-5) were associated with a fall in the number of asthma exacerbations (P < 0.01) and hospital admissions (P < 0.01) in both the treatment and follow-up periods. A single dose reduced exacerbations (P < 0.05, treatment vs. pretreatment) but not hospital admissions. We conclude that intramuscular triamcinolone is a useful short-term therapy in difficult asthma. Whether its efficacy is due to improved compliance, or an improved anti-inflammatory profile compared with oral steroids, remains unclear.

Published 4 April 2005 in Pediatr Pulmonol, 39(5): 421-5.
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