Inhaled steroids may have benefits beyond the lung

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a study, older asthmatic women using inhaled steroids were significantly less likely to die from any cause over 5 years compared to comparable women not using inhaled steroids.

The findings "support and extend" the results of two recent studies from Canada, which suggested that inhaled steroid therapy may have benefits outside the lungs, Dr. Carlos A. Camargo Jr., from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues note in a report in the medical journal Chest.

Their findings stem from 2,671 women with persistent asthma participating in the Nurses' Health Study who responded to a 1998 supplementary asthma questionnaire. Fifty-four percent of these women reported inhaled steroid use in 1998.

Over the next five years, 87 women (3.3 percent) died. Twenty two women died of cardiovascular causes, 31 from cancer, and 34 died from "other" causes (including 4 from asthma).

According to Camargo and colleagues, use of inhaled steroid therapy at the outset, relative to non-use, was associated with a significant 42 percent reduced likelihood of dying from any cause and a 65 percent reduced likelihood of dying from a heart-related cause.

Using inhaled steroids did not significantly cut the risk of dying from cancer or other causes.

The apparent non-pulmonary benefits of inhaled steroids remained strong after the researchers controlled for a variety of factors that might influence the results.

These findings, they conclude, suggest that the long-term value of the early initiation of inhaled steroid therapy "may go well beyond improved asthma control."

SOURCE: Chest, September 2008.