Chest
Selected ReportsLong-term Clarithromycin Decreases Prednisone Requirements in Elderly Patients With Prednisone-Dependent Asthma
Section snippets
Case Report
This case report begins to address the issue by describing threeelderly patients with prednisone-dependent asthma who reduced ordiscontinued oral prednisone therapy after long-term treatment withclarithromycin, a 14-membered ring macrolide.
Discussion
The new finding from these case reports is that long-term (12months) treatment with oral clarithromycin, 500 mg bid, is associatedwith a significant reduction in prednisone dependency in elderlypatients with prednisone-dependent asthma. Importantly, this phenomenonwas associated with a significant improvement in asthma coupled with noreported adverse events, including an increased rate of infection. Thesalutary effects of clarithromycin were observed only after severalweeks of continuous
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Cited by (0)
This study was supported in part by a grant from Abbott Laboratories.