BMJ 2006;332:1467 (24 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7556.1467-a
News
Four in five asthma deaths may be due to long acting 
agonists
Pat Hagan
London
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Eighty per cent of deaths related to asthma in the United States may be due to the use of long acting 
agonists, indicate the results of a meta-analysis of 19 clinical trials.
The results of the review, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (2006;144; 901-12), have led to calls for the drugs to be withdrawn from the US market.
"We can show that overall it is statistically significant that, compared with patients taking a placebo, these long acting agonists kill a lot of people," said the lead researcher, Edwin Salpeter from Cornell University.
The analysis concludes that 4000 of the 5000 asthma related deaths in the US each year occur in patients who are taking the drugs. Although they can relieve the symptoms of asthma they can also, without warning, trigger bronchial inflammation and sensitivity.
Long acting agonists, such as salmeterol, made
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