Helium helps asthmatics breathe - Research summary

BACKGROUND: According to the American Lung Association, asthma is the most common chronic disorder among children. It currently affects and estimated 6.8 million children under the age of 18. Although asthma rarely leads to death, age increases the risk of death associated with the disorder. In fact, 684 adults over the age of 85 died from asthma in 2004, the last year for which data is available. Death from asthma is almost always preventable.

Asthma takes place when the bronchial airways become over-reactive and produce an excessive amount of mucus, swelling and muscle contraction. These reactions cause obstruction of the airway, tightness in the chest, coughing and wheezing. If severe, these symptoms can lead to shortness of breath and low levels of oxygen in the blood.

CAUSES: Experts say inflammation of the airways is the most common cause of asthma, and that inflammation is most often caused by allergies, viral respiratory infections and airborne irritants like cigarette smoke. The American Lung Association says more than 50 percent of current asthma cases are linked to allergies, especially cat allergies. Recent research shows children of smokers are twice as likely to develop asthma as children on nonsmokers. In addition, children of women who smoke less than 10 cigarettes per day during pregnancy are 23 percent more likely to be diagnosed with asthma by age seven. Research also shows asthma is partly genetic in nature. If one parent has asthma, a child has a one in three chance of developing the condition. If both parents have asthma, those chances increase to seven in 10, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

TREATMENT: Medications used to treat asthma can be for long-term control, for quick relief or for the allergies that trigger an asthma attack. The combination of these types of drugs varies from person to person. Long-term medications for asthma include inhaled corticosteroids like fluticasone (Flovent Diskus) and triamcinolone (Azmacort). The Mayo Clinic says unlike oral corticosteroids, these inhaled medications are considered relatively low-risk for side effects when used long-term. Other long-term medications prescribed to treat asthma are called bronchodilators because they open the airways and reduce inflammation. These include formoterol (Foradil Aerolizer), montelukast (Singulair) and theophyilline. Medications used for quick relief during an asthma attack include bronchodilators called short-acting beta-2 agonists, an inhaled medication that relaxes the airways called ipratropium, and corticosteroids administered orally or by IV.

HELIUM IN THE TREATMENT OF ASTHMA: A more recently developed rescue treatment for asthma attacks is a mixture of helium and oxygen. This type of treatment is administered in the emergency room, and it works by allowing air to move more swiftly though an airway that's constricted by an asthma attack. "We can have the patients inhale a mixture of oxygen and helium," James Swift, a pediatric intensive care physician at Sunrise Children's Hospital in Las Vegas, Nev., told Ivanhoe. "That helium layers out and allows the oxygen and the CO2 to get in and out of the airways in a much more efficient manner." He has had children on the treatment, called Heliox, for up to three days at a time.

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