Abstract
Infection is an important cause of asthma attack. We evaluated the effect of low-dose and long-term erythromycin (EM) therapy in 14 children with bronchial asthma who had recurrent lower respiratory tract infection caused by PRSP, H influenzae, or B catarrhalis. The patients were 2 to 8 years of age and all had clinically severe attack. Seven of them had IgE antibodies specific to house dust and mite antigens. Four of them had examined IgG2 subclass antibodies to pneumoccocal capsule polysaccharides and all of them had a deficiency. All of them were given 10-20 mg/kg/day of EM orally and we evaluated clinical efficacy at 6 months. A total of 12 (85.7%) patients had reduced frequency of asthma attack episodes and in 3 the bacterial lower respiratory tract infection was eradicated. These results suggest that low-dose and long-term EM treatment may be very effective for childhood bronchial asthma associated with recurrent bacterial infection.
