Health & Pregnancy

Asthma Drug Soothes RSV-Related Cough

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Robert Welliver, MD, professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the Women's and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, says this is only the first attempt to use this class of drugs to treat RSV-related complications. And he suspects there might be a much broader application for them.

"In this study, they only looked at treating infants after they left the hospital, but this might be treating the wrong end of the illness," says Welliver. "What if you take high-risk kids and put them on these drugs to prevent hospitalization? There is a high percentage of kids with [RSV] who had been in the doctor's office a day or two before they were hospitalized."

Giving these children a leukotriene-inhibitor early on, Welliver says, might prevent some of the inflammation from occurring in the first place.

Joe Spahn, MD, a pediatrician at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, agrees that much more study is needed.

This study found only a modest benefit from using Singulair, but Spahn says RSV-related wheeze involves a very complicated set of variables that no one really fully understands yet.

He says some people think using inhaled steroids, which are also frequently used to prevent asthma attacks, might work in treating this condition. But Spahn says there are just as many studies that say they work as say they don't.

"We don't have a very good therapy to treat this condition, so it's better than what we have,"

Spahn tells WebMD. "This is a start."