Steroid drugs, a common treatment for young children prone to wheezing and colds, do not help and may be harmful, according to new research.
Preschoolers in Britain who were hospitalized with a wheezing attack and treated with the steroid prednisolone stayed just as long as children given dummy pills.
In another study, Canadian children who had previous wheezing trouble and who took the steroid fluticasone as a preventive measure showed modest improvement, but the side effect of possible stunted growth outweighed the benefit, researchers said.
Both studies were reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
Wheezing, a high-pitched whistling noise as a person exhales, occurs when air struggles to get through narrowed airways. It is a frightening symptom that often sends parents to emergency rooms, thinking their children cannot breathe.
Hospitals commonly give children steroids to open airways. That is a standard treatment for adults and for children who have asthma, but its effectiveness for children with transient wheezing is unknown.
In the British study led by the University of Leicester, 687 children 10 months to 5 years who were hospitalized for wheezing were randomly given prednisolone or placebo treatment. There was no significant difference in the time spent in the hospital: 11 hours for the drug group compared with 14 hours for the placebo group.
In the Canadian study, 129 children ages 1 to 6 with a history of wheezing were given either inhaled fluticasone or placebo at the first sign of an infection.
After 10 months, the drug group had milder symptoms and needed fewer repeat medications. But they also had smaller gains in height and weight compared with the placebo group, prompting the researchers to urge against using the drug for prevention purposes until the side effects are better understood.
Dr. Bradley Chipps, an allergy specialist in Sacramento, Calif., said that the research "gives us good information that what we've been doing doesn't work."
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