European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

?2 AGONIST VERSUS CYSTEINYL LEUKOTRIENE RECEPTOR ANTAGONIST IN CHRONIC ASTHMA PATIENTS

Haitham Galal El Din Zakaria* and Mokhles El Nagar

ABSTRACT

Background: Asthma is a heterogeneous disease characterised by chronic airway inflammation. Although studies show that control of asthma can be achieved using many drug classes in the majority of patients, surveys repeatedly show that the response is variable due to multifactorial reasons. This study was designed to evaluate the usage of Beta 2 agonist "bambuterol" or Leukotriene receptor antagonist "zafirlukast" as preventive drugs in chronic asthmatics. Patients and methods: Using Open-Label clinical trial, 44 patients with moderate persistent asthma were randomly enrolled into 2 groups; the first group contains 22 patients, treated with once daily 10 mg orally bambuterol for 4 weeks and the second group contains 22 patients, treated with twice daily 20 mg orally zafirlukast for 4 weeks. Frequency of asthma symptoms, pulse oximetry (SpO2) and pulmonary function tests (PFTs) were recorded at baseline and at the end point (after 4 weeks). Results: Both bambuterol and zafirlukast showed significant improvement in asthma symptoms, pulmonary function test values and pulse oximetry after 4-week therapy compared to the first visit (p < 0.05), however, bambuterol showed more significant improvement in PFT values compared to zafirlukast.

Keywords: Bambuterol; Zafirlukast; Chronic bronchial asthma; Pulse oximetry; Pulmnory function tests.