Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Publication Title
Primary Care Respiratory Medicine
Volume
24
Abstract
Aims: The aim of this study was to compare a low-cost, human-powered nebuliser compressor with an electric nebuliser compressor for the treatment of mild to moderate asthma exacerbations in adults and children.
Methods: This was a non-blinded, parallel-group, equivalence study, with 110 subjects between 6 and 65 years of age, conducted in the emergency department of a district hospital in Ilopango, El Salvador. Participants were assigned by random allocation to receive a 2.5-mg dose of salbutamol from the experimental human-powered nebuliser or the electric nebuliser control. All assigned participants completed treatment and were included in analysis. The study was not blinded as this was clinically unfeasible; however, data analysis was blinded.
Results: The mean improvement in peak flow of the experimental and control groups was 37.5 (95% confidence interval (CI) 26.7–48.2) l/min and 38.7 (95% CI, 26.1–51.3) l/min, respectively, with a mean difference of 1.3 (95% CI, −15.1 to 17.7) l/min. The mean improvement in percent-expected peak flow for the experimental and control groups was 12.3% (95% CI, 9.1–15.5%) and 13.8% (95% CI, 9.8–17.9%), respectively, with a mean difference of 1.5% (95% CI, −3.6 to 6.6%).
Conclusions: The human-powered nebuliser compressor is equivalent to a standard nebuliser compressor for the treatment of mild-to-moderate asthma. (Funded by the Opus Dean’s Fund, Marquette University College of Engineering; ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01795742.)
Recommended Citation
M. Therese Lysaught, Christopher J. Hallberg, Rene Antonio Najarro, Fausto Cea Gill, Clara Villatoro, Ana Celia Diaz de Uriarte, and Lars E. Olson. "Treatment of asthma exacerbations with the human-powered nebuliser: a randomised parallel-group clinical trial" npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine 24 (2014).
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Copyright Statement
© 2014 Primary Care Respiratory Society UK/Macmillan Publishers Limited.
Comments
Author Posting. © 2014 Primary Care Respiratory Society UK/Macmillan Publishers Limited. This article is posted here by permission of the A© 2014 Primary Care Respiratory Society UK/Macmillan Publishers Limited for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine, Volume 24, 2014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npjpcrm.2014.16