Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0010200 (cough)
 23,843 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Zafirlukast is a drug newly used for the treatment of asthma. In this study, we examined the efficacy of zafirlukast on asthmatic patients and compared this efficacy between patients in different age groups and with different severities of pulmonary function. Patients concurrently inhaled long-acting beta2-agonist, corticosteroid or taken an oral aminophylline regimen, were treated with 20 mg oral zafirlukast twice daily for 6 weeks. In total, 32 asthmatic patients were included in the study. The primary efficacy measures included morning and evening peak expiratory flows (PEFs); secondary efficacy measures were the scoring of asthma symptoms including sleeping, coughing, and wheezing scores. Pulmonary functions including forced expiratory flow in 1 sec (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), and PEF rate (PEFR) were examined during each clinical visit. Results showed that oral zafirlukast administration resulted in improvements in morning and evening PEFs and asthma symptom scores with the following statistical p values: morning PEF (285.8 vs 308.4 L/min), p = 0.003; evening PEF (293.3 vs 312.1 L/min), p = 0.007; coughing score (1.03 vs 0.72), p = 0.011; and wheezing score (0.71 vs 0.51), p = 0.009. As to the pulmonary function during the clinical visit, only the improvement of PEFR reached a statistically significant level (74.3 vs 82, p = 0.017). We compared the efficacy between asthmatic patients of different ages and those with different severities of pulmonary function. In patients aged below 50 years, those with FEV1 above 80% of the predicted value and FVC above 85% of the predicted value were more responsive to zafirlukast. In conclusion, we demonstrate the efficacy of zafirlukast in asthma therapy particularly for those patients who are younger and have better pulmonary function. When asthmatic patients do not respond to inhaled corticosteroid, long-acting beta2-agonist, or oral aminophylline, zafirlukast may provide an adjunct effect for asthma therapy.
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PMID:Efficacy of zafirlukast in the treatment of patients with bronchial asthma. 1132 Nov 30

Cough-variant asthma (CVA) occurs in a subgroup of asthmatics whose sole or predominant respiratory symptom is cough. Although bronchodilators are often sufficient to treat CVA, refractory cough may require therapy with inhaled or systemic corticosteroids. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, we examined the effect of a 14-day course of the leukotriene receptor antagonist zafirlukast on subjective cough score and cough-reflex sensitivity to inhaled capsaicin in eight subjects with CVA refractory to inhaled beta agonists, and in five subjects refractory to inhaled corticosteroids. Seven of eight subjects experienced significant subjective and objective improvement in cough after treatment with zafirlukast. Mean (+/- SEM) cough score improved from 7.75 +/- 0.56 to 3.25 +/- 0.84 (p = 0.0006). Cough sensitivity to capsaicin was suppressed by zafirlukast in all subjects. Patients with CVA may represent a distinct subgroup of asthmatics whose afferent cough receptors within the respiratory epithelium are hypersensitive relative to those of patients with the typical form of asthma. Zafirlukast appears to be particularly effective in treating CVA by inhibiting the sensitivity of these receptors. Leukotriene receptor antagonists may offer an alternative to corticosteroids for the treatment of CVA refractory to inhaled bronchodilators.
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PMID:Antitussive effect of the leukotriene receptor antagonist zafirlukast in subjects with cough-variant asthma. 1209 78