Asthma breakthrough drug could prevent attacks

About 31 per cent of people with asthma do not have treatment options that work for them, say charities

They have successfully tested it on living mice and on human airway tissue and are now conducting toxicity tests to determine whether it is safe for people to use. Experiments in mice found that a cheap chemical commonly used for MRI imaging, known as gadolinium, cut airway damage by 70 to 80 per cent, significantly reducing the constriction and destruction of the airways that paves the way for future attacks.

Researchers say the findings in this study have the potential to change scientific understanding of asthma, which had previously thought to be mainly driven by inflammation – with most existing treatments based on that idea. “We hope that early gadolinium treatment, when patients are feeling tight airways before an attack, might prevent an attack and would hopefully not need to be used continuously. These are questions that will need trials to answer accurately, however.”

Because bronchoconstriction forces out so many cells, it damages the airway barrier that causes inflammation and excess mucus.

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