Some doctors already are prescribing Spiriva for adult asthmatics who have not found enough relief from other drugs, but a major clinical trial now supports it, experts told the Los Angeles Times.
Spiriva is expected to provide an alternative to long-acting beta-agonists like Serevent, Advair and Symbicort, which in a few cases can aggravate asthma symptoms, leading to hospitalization and even death.
The study, by a team headed by Dr. Stephen Peters of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, was published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and reported Sunday at a meeting in Barcelona, Spain, of the European Respiratory Society.
A particular strength of Spiriva, generic name tiotropium bromide, is that it can last for 24 hours or more, providing long-lasting relief, said Dr. Michael D. Roth, a professor of pulmonary medicine at UCLA who was not involved in the research.
Tiotropium was shown to be more effective by a number of measures, including the number of days patients had no symptoms and did not need to use albuterol rescue inhalers.