Antibiotic may help asthma symptoms: study
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An antibiotic made by French drug-maker Sanofi-Aventis may reduce some symptoms when asthma worsens but it does not improve breathing capacity, according to a study financed by the drug company.
The study published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine found that 278 adults who took the antibiotic telithromycin—sold under the name Ketek—for 10 days after their attacks showed a drop in asthma symptoms.
But using another gauge of success—how much air patients could exhale—the antibiotic showed no benefit. “None of the pulmonary-function tests showed a significant treatment effect by the sixth week of the study,” the researchers concluded.
Those who took the drug were also more likely to experience nausea.
Using a 7-point scale that measured symptoms like wheezing, coughing and chest tightness—with 7 the most severe—most patients rated their symptoms at about 3 before treatment.
Those receiving the drug eventually had their score drop an average of 1.3 points and the placebo recipients had a drop of 1.0 point said the researchers, all of whom have ties to the drug company.
Ketek has come under scrutiny because it may, in rare cases, cause liver poisoning.
Three such instances were reported in January. One patient died, another required a transplant, and the third recovered. The drug, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2004, has been prescribed about 2.7 million times.
In an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, Frederic Little of the Boston University School of Medicine said it seems likely that the improvements seen in the drug patients had nothing to do with the antibiotic effects.
More study is necessary before any treatment should be prescribed, he said.
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