Published ahead of print on March 18, 2005, doi:10.1164/rccm.200502-257OE Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 171, Number 11, June 2005, 1202-1208 A more recent version of this article appeared on June 1, 2005
Submitted on February 16, 2005 Asthma: One Hundred Years of Treatment and OnwardEric K Chu1 and Jeffrey M Drazen1*1 Department of Medicine, Pulmonary Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jdrazen{at}nejm.org.
There have been four types of drug treatment of asthma that have been employed over the past 100 years. Belladonna alkaloids, derived from the thornapple plant were used in 1905 and chemically synthesized entities in this class are still in use today. Western medicine began to use adrenergic stimulants about 100 years ago, but they were likely used in Asian medicine long before that. Systemic treatment with corticosteroids was introduced into the treatment of asthma in the mid twentieth century, inhaled corticosteroids have been in use for over 35 years. The last 40 years have also seen the development of the first targeted asthma treatments-cromones, anti-leukotrienes and anti-IgE. As we learn more of the biology of asthma, we anticipate that more effective targeted asthma treatments will be developed. Key words: asthma, anticholinergic, adrenergic, corticosteroid
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