[Influence of beclomethasone dipropionate inhalation therapy with a large spacer on emergency room visits by patients with bronchial asthma].

From April 1992 we introduced beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) inhalation therapy with a large spacer for patients with bronchial asthma who were admitted to the internal medicine department of our hospital because of an exacerbation of asthma. To investigate the influence of this BDP inhalation therapy on emergency room visits by patients with bronchial asthma, we studied the patients who were admitted to the emergency room at our hospital with asthmatic attacks from April 1991 to March 1994. A significant (p < 0.05) reduction in the number of patients who visited our emergency room with asthmatic attacks was found over the 3 years: from April 1991 to March 1992 (before the introduction of BDP inhalation therapy), 575 patients (47.9 +/- 7.5 patients/month) were admitted with asthmatic attacks; from April 1992 to March 1993, 341 patients (28.4 +/- 13.0 patients/month) were admitted, and from April 1993 to March 1994, 285 patients (25.1 +/- 9.2 patients/month). Among the patients who were admitted to our emergency room, the proportion of first-visit patient tended to increase. We studied 27 emergency-room-visit patients who attended our hospital regularly from one year before to one year after the introduction of BDP therapy. The therapy failed to control asthmatic symptoms in 12 patients on long courses of oral corticosteroids, on the other hand control of 15 patients without oral steroid was favorable. These results suggests that BDP inhalation therapy with a large spacer decreases the number of emergency room visits by patients with bronchial asthma.