JOIN USChildren who take inhaled steroid drugs for asthma end up being slightly shorter as adults than those not using the medication, a new study has found.
Researchers found that, on average, children using steroids for asthma were half an inch shorter than their peers. It is the first major study to follow children with asthma into adulthood for height checks.
The study involved more than 1,000 children aged between 5-12 years, who were treated for mild to moderate asthma. The children received treatment for more than four years at eight centers. They were divided into three groups: one received twice-daily budesonide, an inhaled corticosteroid medication; a second group received nedocromil, an inhaled non-steroid medication; and a third group received a placebo.
All children received albuterol, a fast-acting drug for relief of acute asthma symptoms, and oral corticosteroids as needed for asthma symptoms.
Researchers followed 943 participants in the trial at regular intervals until they reached adult height. Females were considered to be at adult height at age 18 or older and males at age 20 or older, Robert C Strunk, senior author of report said in a statement.
In the first 4 1/2 years after the end of the trial, researchers noted patients' height and weight every six months. Over the next eight years, height and weight were measured once or twice a year.
The mean adult height was about one-half inch, or 1.2 centimeters, shorter in the group that received budesonide than in the patients who received nedocromil or placebo. The patients who experienced the slower growth were primarily between 5-11 years old when they began using budesonide.
The slower growth took place only in the first two years of the four-year study. As the study progressed, the children who took the budesonide remained one-half inch shorter through adulthood than the children who did not use the drug. "This was surprising because in previous studies, we found that the slower growth would be temporary, not affecting adult height. But none of those studies followed patients from the time they entered the study until they had reached adult height," Strunk said.
"If a child is not growing as they should, we may reduce their steroid dose," he noted. The findings will be presented at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Vienna, Austria.