Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 12, Issue 25, 2006

Asthma bronchiale, affecting 155 millions people worldwide, has emerged as a major public health problem worldwide over the past 20 years. Although data indicate that current asthma therapies led to limited decreases in death rates, it continues to be a significant health care problem. As we head into the 21st century doctors have a vast arsenal of drugs and treatments at their disposal allowing asthmatics to lead normal f Read More

Human asthma is on the rise worldwide. The necessity to develop effective treatments against it requires an organized effort which covers every aspect of the disease from the pathological alterations via the genetic background to the use and development of active remedies. In these processes animal experiments have served an indispensable role. As asthma is not a natural disease in the animal kingdom the variety f Read More

Patient response to asthma therapy is consistently observed to be heterogeneous. Pharmacogenomics is the study of inherited differences in interindividual drug disposition and effects, with the goal of selecting the optimal drug therapy and dosage for each patient. This review will cover selected examples of gene polymorphisms that influence the outcome of asthma therapy, and whole-genome expression studies using Read More

Over the last fifteen years there has been much excitement in the idea that targeting phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4 with small molecule inhibitors could lead to the discovery of novel, steroid-sparing compounds with utility in treating a multitude of diseases associated with chronic inflammation. However, dose-limiting side effects, of which nausea and vomiting are the most common are worrisome, have hampered their clinical d Read More

The discovery of the delicate role of endogenous nitric oxide in the homeostasis of various cellular functions and the dynamic behaviour of the airways, has led to a new, rapidly progressing area of physiological science, that has direct bearing for our understanding of multiple airway diseases. The potentially protective effects of nitric oxide include: neuromodulation by mediating inhibitory non-cholinergic nonadrenergi Read More

Current asthma therapy is aimed at controlling disease symptoms. A subset of asthma patients remains symptomatic despite optimal therapy indicating that an unmet medical need exists for these patients. Innovative therapeutics are needed to treat the unmet need in asthma and biopharmaceutical approaches may provide an opportunity for identifying these agents. It is proposed that airway remodeling contribut Read More

Inhaled and intranasal corticosteroids (ICSs) still are the most effective treatment available for allergic airway diseases and are likely to remain the cornerstone of managing persistent asthma/allergic rhinitis in the foreseeable future. Even if the therapeutic index of this class increased significantly with the introduction of newer corticosteroids, and even if new therapeutic potentials are beginning to emerge with our incr Read More

Asthma treatment guidelines advocate the use of long-acting β2-agonists (LABA) in addition to inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) in patients whose asthma is uncontrolled by ICS alone, thereby addressing two processes fundamental to asthma: bronchoconstriction and inflammation. Superior control - including a reduction in severe exacerbations - of asthma and COPD by ICS/LABA combination therapy has been demonstrated. Read More

The severity and incidence of asthma has dramatically increased in the developed nations over the last decades. Although the reason for this development is unknown, epidemiological studies and experimental data have lead to the suggestion that this phenomenon is associated with the decline of infectious diseases, which induce T helper 1 and/or T regulatory responses. Supporting this view are recent publications showi Read More

There is considerable evidence that T-helper 2 (Th2) cells play a central role in the pathogenesis of allergic diseases such as bronchial asthma, hay fever or food allergy. The differentiation of naïve T cells into Th2 cells producing a specific pattern of cytokines is tightly controlled and regulated by transcription factors. Thus down-regulation of mRNAlevels of a single transcription factor leads to a “knock-down” of several mediators Read More