An injection given during some asthma and COPD attacks is more effective than the current treatment of steroid tablets, reducing the need for further treatment by 30%. The findings, published today in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine , could be "game-changing" for millions of people with asthma and COPD around the world, scientists say. Asthma attacks and COPD flare-ups (also called exacerbations) can be deadly.
Every day in the UK four people with asthma and 85 people with COPD will tragically die. Both conditions are also very common, in the UK someone has an asthma attack every 10 seconds. Asthma and COPD costs the NHS £5.
9B a year. The type of symptom flare-up the injection treats are called 'eosinophilic exacerbations' and involve symptoms such as wheezing, coughing and chest tightness due to inflammation resulting from high amounts of eosinophils (a type of white blood cell). Eosinophilic exacerbations make up to 30% of COPD flare-ups and almost 50% of asthma attacks.
They can become more frequent as the disease progresses, leading to irreversible lung damage in some cases. Treatment at the point of an exacerbation for this type of asthma has barely changed for over fifty years, with steroid drugs being the mainstay of medication. Steroids such as prednisolone can reduce inflammation in the lungs but have severe side-effects such as diabetes and osteoporosis.
Furthermore, many patients 'fail' treatment and need repeated courses of steroids, re-hospitalisation or die wit.
