According to a recently concluded review, a single prescribed inhaler that contains two medicines can prove effective to help people with chronic asthma to manage their condition in a better way.

It was remarked by lead reviewer Christopher Cates, M.D., at the Community Health Sciences of St. George’s at the University of London that most asthma patients tend to default on inhaled steroids possibly because inhaled steroids do not bring immediate difference to asthma symptoms.

From Sciencedaily.com:

The Cochrane reviewers found no significant reduction in the number of asthma exacerbations that required hospitalization among the patients who used single inhaler therapy.

However, the reviewers did find that fewer adults on single inhaler therapy had exacerbations needing a course of oral corticosteroids. Compared with 18 people of 100 in the control inhaled corticosteroid group who had an exacerbation treated with oral steroids over 11 months, there were 11 of 100 for the single inhaler therapy group.

“One attraction of the combined inhalers is that the inhaled corticosteroid is automatically taken with the beta-agonist, which does relieve symptoms,” said Cates. “Single-inhaler therapy takes this one stage further, as the inhaled corticosteroid is automatically increased, with the beta-agonist, if the asthma symptoms worsen. This approach shows clear advantages in comparison to taking inhaled corticosteroids alone, but is less convincing when compared to current best practice.”

Carlos Camargo, M.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, specializes in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said that the single-inhaler therapy is a new approach to manage chronic asthma in an effective manner.