(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- People with mild, persistent asthma may need to inhale anti-inflammatory steroids only during periods of bad symptoms rather than daily, as current guidelines recommend.

A year-long study comparing daily vs. as-needed corticosteroids for mild, persistent asthma shows adult asthma sufferers fare about as well whether they take a steroid drug every day or only during asthma attacks. Scientists from the University of California at San Francisco and Harvard Medical School in Boston led the multi-center study, known as the Improving Asthma Control Trial (IMPACT).

Conventional asthma treatment involves two prescribed drugs -- a “beta agonist” for immediate release and daily use of inhaled corticosteroids to reduce airway inflammation.

According to one of the study’s authors, annual medication would cost patients up to $150 a month less if they only took inhaled steroids when symptoms flared.

“There is no question use of inhaled corticosteroids or other anti-inflammatory drugs known as anti-leukotrienes are effective -- and necessary -- for patients with moderate or severe asthma, but our findings suggest the NIH guidelines for treating asthma may have gone a little too far in requiring patients with truly mild asthma to take these inflammatory drugs every day,” says Homer Boushey, M.D., the study's co-leader.

“This study will need confirmation before the findings should change the standard of practice, but it suggests adults with mild asthma may do about as well if they have the medication on hand and are advised to take them for a week or two just when their symptoms flare up,” says Dr. Boushey.

SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, 2005;352:1519-1528