You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Therapeutics
Review: long acting β agonists increase severe asthma exacerbations and asthma related deaths in children and adults

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebm.12.1.10

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Salpeter SR, Buckley NS, Ormiston TM, et al. Meta-analysis: effect of long-acting beta-agonists on severe asthma exacerbations and asthma-related deaths. Ann Intern Med 2006;144:904–2.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

    
 
 Q In children and adults with asthma, do long acting β agonists (LABAs) increase severe asthma exacerbations requiring hospital admission, life threatening asthma attacks, and asthma related deaths?

    Clinical impact ratings GP/FP/Primary care ★★★★★★☆ Internal medicine ★★★★★★☆ Allergy & immunology ★★★★★★☆ Emergency medicine ★★★★★☆☆ Respirology ★★★★★☆☆

    METHODS

    Embedded ImageData sources:

    Medline, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, CINAHL, and Cochrane databases (all from 1966 to December 2005); references of selected reviews; and the US Food and Drug Administration website.

    Embedded ImageStudy selection and assessment:

    randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in any language that compared LABAs (salmeterol, formoterol, or eformoterol) with placebo and had ⩾3 month follow up. Patients were allowed to use short acting β agonists if needed. 19 RCTs (n = 33 826; mean age 37–38 y, 51% men) met the selection criteria. Quality assessment of individual studies was based on randomisation procedure, allocation concealment, blinding, dropouts and …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • For correspondence: Dr S R Salpeter, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, San Jose, CA, USA. Salpeter{at}stanford.edu

    • Source of funding: no external funding.