In a latest study, scientists discovered that one of the world's most common serious diseases may be treated with one of the world's most common chemical hormones.
Researchers at the McMaster University in Canada found that corticosteroid therapy increases the survival rate of patients diagnosed with pneumonia.
In a paper called Corticosteroid Therapy for Patients Hospitalized With Community-Acquired Pneumonia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis published online on Aug. 11 in Annals of Internal Medicine, the researchers described the beneficial effects of corticosteroid therapy among a group of hospitalized patients due to pneumonia acquired in a community.
In their study, the researchers, made up of lead investigators from McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, along with international collaborators, analyzed hospitalization in 2,000 in 13 randomized trials.
"Our study should lead to an important change in the treatment for pneumonia," said Dr. Reed Siemieniuk, a physician and graduate student at McMaster, and the study's lead author. He emphasized how millions of patients can benefit from this newfound evidence, adding that "corticosteroids are inexpensive and readily available."
Siemieniuk and his team found that the use of corticosteroid therapy minimizes the rate of patients needing for mechanical ventilation or a breathing tube from 1 percent to 5 percent. The likelihood of acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening complication, was also reduced from eight percent to two percent of patients. The patients diagnosed with community-acquired pneumonia who were given corticosteroid therapy were also found to have been discharged from the hospital one day sooner. Significantly, death rates were reduced approximately in half, from nine to ten percent, to five to six percent.
"Seldom do we see a major advance in treatment of a condition as common as community-acquired pneumonia," also noted Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a McMaster professor of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics and the study's lead investigator. He added that, over short periods, corticosteroids are safe, and their recent discovery has revealed their importance in providing benefits to a "serious and common medical illness."
Worldwide, lower respiratory infections are the second most common triggers of early deaths. Hospitalization is common in patients with community-acquired pneumonia, and the condition. It requires mechanical ventilation and leads to a high mortality rate.
