AstraZeneca Asthma inhaler potentially reduces the risk of hospitalizations by 90%

drunkmonkey

(Reuters) - A commonly used asthma treatment appears to reduce the need for hospitalizations as well as recovery time for COVID-19 patients if given within seven days of symptoms appearing, researchers at the University of Oxford said on Tuesday.

The findings were made following a mid-stage study of the steroid budesonide, sold as Pulmicort by AstraZeneca Plc and also used for treating smoker’s lung.

The 28-day study of 146 patients suggested that inhaled budesonide reduced the risk of urgent care or hospitalization by 90% when compared with usual care, Oxford University said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-asthma-treatment/common-asthma-drug-cuts-covid-19-hospitalization-risk-recovery-time-oxford-study-idUSKBN2A92DA

Sounds like it could be a game changer in preventing hospital admissions, the data hasn't been peer reviewed yet but it was one of the headlines in the times of Israel yesterday.

JMNolan

Be nice if it was but I've read about a lot of treatments and we're still in the sh1t

NIMAN

Sample size of 146?

latency89

Que certain posters going to says its no good because only 146 people in the study, more data needed and AZ hyped its vaccine that's inferior to Pfizer, so can't be trusted

Think it sounds great myself, can doctors prescribe off label?

Edit already been mentioned re 146

drunkmonkey

JMNolan wrote: »

Be nice if it was but I've read about a lot of treatments and we're still in the sh1t

We don't seem to doing anything to prevent hospitalizations here, isolate for two weeks, if it gets bad you end up in hospital, maybe that's a symplistic view on it be I haven't heard of anyone being prescribed anything to help avoid hospital.

odyssey06

This might possibly explain why the virus doesn't seem to have hit asthmatics as hard as might have been expected for a respiratory disease.

givyjoe

drunkmonkey wrote: »

We don't seem to doing anything to prevent hospitalizations here, isolate for two weeks, if it gets bad you end up in hospital, maybe that's a symplistic view on it be I haven't heard of anyone being prescribed anything to help avoid hospital.

The folks running the show here do seem to be epicly behind the latest developments on a consistent basis. Any time I doubt this, I think back to Tony confidently stating we'd only see a handful of cases here back in February last year.

JMNolan

drunkmonkey wrote: »

We don't seem to doing anything to prevent hospitalizations here, isolate for two weeks, if it gets bad you end up in hospital, maybe that's a symplistic view on it be I haven't heard of anyone being prescribed anything to help avoid hospital.

Ya, I agree. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but Ireland is very poor at imaginative solutions to this problem. I have yet to read a headline that read like "Ireland finds x prevents y" or "Ireland discovers y slows x".

monkeybutter

drunkmonkey wrote: »

(Reuters) - A commonly used asthma treatment appears to reduce the need for hospitalizations as well as recovery time for COVID-19 patients if given within seven days of symptoms appearing, researchers at the University of Oxford said on Tuesday.

The findings were made following a mid-stage study of the steroid budesonide, sold as Pulmicort by AstraZeneca Plc and also used for treating smoker’s lung.

The 28-day study of 146 patients suggested that inhaled budesonide reduced the risk of urgent care or hospitalization by 90% when compared with usual care, Oxford University said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-asthma-treatment/common-asthma-drug-cuts-covid-19-hospitalization-risk-recovery-time-oxford-study-idUSKBN2A92DA

Sounds like it could be a game changer in preventing hospital admissions, the data hasn't been peer reviewed yet but it was one of the headlines in the times of Israel yesterday.

look i took up smoking to stop me getting covid back in April, I think I'll stick with that

paw patrol

JMNolan wrote: »

Be nice if it was but I've read about a lot of treatments and we're still in the sh1t

none of which have been adopted by the state.

Example being.

It's pretty clear vitamin d helps - yet (correct me if i'm wrong) no official line of "take thy vitamin d" from HSE/ Dept Health or NPHET.
They could even give out free vitamin d - it's cheap as fcuk.

They are doing shag all in this regard...seems like vaccines are the only game in town , which is nonsense.

JMNolan

paw patrol wrote: »

none of which have been adopted by the state.

Example being.

It's pretty clear vitamin d helps - yet (correct me if i'm wrong) no official line of "take thy vitamin d" from HSE/ Dept Health or NPHET.
They could even give out free vitamin d - it's cheap as fcuk.

They are doing shag all in this regard...seems like vaccines are the only game in town , which is nonsense.

Yup, agree 100%. Lots of things they could try that are harmless but our lot are as imaginative as a rock. All we really do is look at what the UK are up to and copy that.

drunkmonkey

NIMAN wrote: »

Sample size of 146?

Technically yes, the anomoly of asthma suffers not ending up in hospital that triggered the study is a lot larger, the sample size alone in Ireland is 380,000. We'd need the data here to see but I doubt we're recording it.

Icantthinkof1

odyssey06 wrote: »

This might possibly explain why the virus doesn't seem to have hit asthmatics as hard as might have been expected for a respiratory disease.

I watched that Covid special programme on rte this week and something that struck me was a few of those on the programme that were hospitalised had asthma.
I say this as an asthmatic myself hopefully that inhaler does work. I was prescribed symbicort before but it didn’t suit me so had to change

drunkmonkey

Icantthinkof1 wrote: »

I don’t think there’s any evidence that the virus doesn’t hit asthmatics as hard?

I don't think that claim is being made, it's saying that they have less risk of hospitalizations.
For the general public they would only need the inhaler for a week or two from the onset of symptoms to severely reduce their risk of ending up in hospital. It also helps with other symptoms such as reducing fever.

drunkmonkey

It's back in the headlines..

"Inhaled asthma drug shortens Covid recovery and could be ‘significant for world,’ study finds
Hope that GPs will be able to start treating Covid patients at home with cheap and readily available medicine"

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-treatment-drug-asthma-hospital-b1830127.html

drunkmonkey

Can a mod change the Title as the fact we have a game changing, readily available and cheap cure might do away with the vaccine obsession and lockdown.

"Oxford’s Professor Gail Hayward, a co-principal investigator in the trial, told a media briefing: “I think this does have significant implications for the world as this is the first time a treatment has been shown to be beneficial for patients in their community"

odyssey06

While it is certainly good news to have a treatment that helps patients at home and can be prescribed by GPs, I would not really call this game changing. It speeds up recovery at home.

* Group recovered from Covid on average three days sooner than another group given normal care, which is advice to rest and take paracetamol, the trial data showed. And a third of those taking inhaled budesonide recovered within the first 14 days of using it, compared to less than a quarter of those in the other group.
* Slightly fewer people on the drug were admitted to hospital with Covid (8.5% compared to 10.3%) - but more data is needed before this, or any reduction in deaths from Covid, can be confirmed, the researchers said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56717486

JMNolan

Have they looked at any of the other asthma medication yet? Albuterol for example?

banie01

This makes sense.
Given that the main issue with Covid is often an inflammatory response in the lungs.
It makes sense that an aerosolised steroid delivered directly to the lungs would at least provide symptomatic relief.

Now sense doesn't often lead to medically significant findings, but it will be interesting to see a large scale study.

is_that_so

Game changer number 226?

odyssey06

odyssey06 wrote: »

While it is certainly good news to have a treatment that helps patients at home and can be prescribed by GPs, I would not really call this game changing. It speeds up recovery at home.

* Group recovered from Covid on average three days sooner than another group given normal care, which is advice to rest and take paracetamol, the trial data showed. And a third of those taking inhaled budesonide recovered within the first 14 days of using it, compared to less than a quarter of those in the other group.
* Slightly fewer people on the drug were admitted to hospital with Covid (8.5% compared to 10.3%) - but more data is needed before this, or any reduction in deaths from Covid, can be confirmed, the researchers said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56717486

No no, Drunkmonkey informs us its a game changer

drunkmonkey

odyssey06 wrote: »

While it is certainly good news to have a treatment that helps patients at home and can be prescribed by GPs, I would not really call this game changing. It speeds up recovery at home.

You might not but the doctors are and the recommendation is to discuss it with patients, it's a harmless drug and it's the ones most at risk of hospitalization it's of most beneficial to straight away, it's also said that it may cut transmission.

There's no reason I can see GP's shouldn't be told the same here, stay at home until you end up in a&e is the current treatment here.

is_that_so

latency89 wrote: »

Que certain posters going to says its no good because only 146 people in the study, more data needed and AZ hyped its vaccine that's inferior to Pfizer, so can't be trusted

Think it sounds great myself, can doctors prescribe off label?

Edit already been mentioned re 146

Would you bet your life on a study of 146 people? It's not peer reviewed yet.

drunkmonkey

Deleted User wrote: »

No no, Drunkmonkey informs us its a game changer

It's the dum dums in Oxford said it not me, it's headline news in the UK, we can't keep rubbishing and trying to dumb down anything that's not 0 Covid or herd immunity through vaccines.

drunkmonkey

is_that_so wrote: »

Would you bet your life on a study of 146 people? It's not peer reviewed yet.

For the Principle study, 751 people with symptomatic Covid-19 were treated with budesonide at home over a 14-day period. Their progress was compared with 1,028 patients who were assigned the usual standard of NHS care alone.

is_that_so

drunkmonkey wrote: »

For the Principle study, 751 people with symptomatic Covid-19 were treated with budesonide at home over a 14-day period. Their progress was compared with 1,028 patients who were assigned the usual standard of NHS care alone.

At least wait for it to be reviewed. You still need more data and less jumping up and down shouting game changer Colchicine was another game changer until they found, through more trials, there was no great statistical improvement from it.

odyssey06

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's the dum dums in Oxford said it not me, it's headline news in the UK, we can't keep rubbishing and trying to dumb down anything that's not 0 Covid or herd immunity through vaccines.

Nowhere in the linked article do the Oxford researchers describe it as game changing. They call it significant.

I'm rubbishing it as a game changer based on the data so far, not rubbishing it as a beneficial medicine to speed up home recovery.

In Dunphy mode this is good news but not great news.

drunkmonkey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's the dum dums in Oxford said it not me, it's headline news in the UK, we can't keep rubbishing and trying to dumb down anything that's not 0 Covid or herd immunity through vaccines.

10.3% to 8.5% hospitalisations. Its welcome - but if 100,000 people catch the virus, that's still 8,500 hospitalisations. Vaccines are the true game changer as the 100,000 cases becomes 5,000 and the hospitalisations become <<100.

And it was you that said its a game changer, not oxford university

drunkmonkey

Deleted User wrote: »

10.3% to 8.5% hospitalisations. Its welcome - but if 100,000 people catch the virus, that's still 8,500 hospitalisations. Vaccines are the true game changer as the 100,000 cases becomes 5,000 and the hospitalisations become <<100.

And it was you that said its a game changer, not oxford university

Read the article again, saying 100,000 who can catch the virus is fudging things. It's people who were at risk of hospitalizations anyway and are symptomatic, it also looks like it's reduces transmission which has a direct effect on the amount of cases and people who are treated quickly are at way less risk of long Covid.
Your concentrating on a small part of the data but not the meat of the story, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-treatment-drug-asthma-hospital-b1830127.html

drunkmonkey

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Read the article again, saying 100,000 who can catch the virus is fudging things. It's people who were at risk of hospitalizations anyway and are symptomatic, it also looks like it's reduces transmission which has a direct effect on the amount of cases and people who are treated quickly are at way less risk of long Covid.
Your concentrating on a small part of the data but not the meat of the story, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-treatment-drug-asthma-hospital-b1830127.html

The data showing a 20% reduction is not important but the fluff article on AZ in the UK press just when AZ are in the news for other reasons is?