This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Irwin J. Polk, MD
American Medical Association Chicago

JAMA. 1982;248(12):1450.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

In Reply.—

Initial reports on the use of beclomethasone were completely sunny; with the passage of time, some clouds have begun to appear. Although a direct causal relationship is difficult to prove, in one study, three deaths from asthma were reported in children using this drug.¹ Nor can the findings of Wyatt et al² be discounted in a few words. That excellent study showed suppression of serum cortisol levels in patients treated with as little as 500 µg/day of beclomethasone; the usual recommended dose is up to 1,000 µg/day.

One of the criticisms of such studies is that they provide laboratory evidence only of disruption of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function. The clinically relevant issue is whether inhalant corticosteroids impair the ability of patients to respond to stress. Using insulin-induced hypoglycemia as the source of stress, Vaz et al³ showed that maximal level of cortisol elicited by the stress . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?