May 2004

Current Issue
Past Issues
About Us

Public Affairs
Baylor Home

Public Affairs
Baylor College
of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza,
Room 176B
Houston, TX 77030
Telephone:
(713) 798-4712
Fax
(713) 798-3692
Email: pa@bcm.tmc.edu

Flu vaccine benefits asthmatics

Nicola Hanania, MD

Go ahead. Take the flu vaccine – even if you have asthma, say experts at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

In a recent study led by Nicola Hanania, MD, BCM assistant professor of medicine and director of the Asthma Clinical Research Center, asthma patients were protected against type A flu, the type that most commonly circulates in the United States. Protection against type B flu, caused by another type of influenza virus, was slightly reduced in a subgroup of asthma patients taking inhaled steroids. The report appears in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

“The findings of this study should reassure physicians and patients that influenza vaccine is expected to provide protection against influenza in most asthma patients including those taking inhaled steroids,” said Hanania.

“It works for influenza type A, the most common type that circulates in Houston and the United States,” he said. There are occasional outbreaks of influenza type B, and in the event this happens, people who use inhaled steroids to control their asthma may not be adequately protected and may need to receive other medications, he said.

Only an estimated 9 percent of people with asthma get the flu vaccine each year, despite public health officials’ warnings that individuals with chronic lung disease should seek such preventive measures.

“There is a myth that the flu vaccine exacerbates asthma,” said Hanania. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001 disproved that notion, recommending that given the potential for serious illness among people with asthma, the flu vaccine is a safe and effective treatment. (N Engl J Med 2001;345:1529-36) The study was carried out by the American Lung Association’s Asthma Clinical Research Centers.

Hanania was the lead researcher among the six centers belonging to the American Lung Association’s Asthma Clinical Research Centers that examined the response to flu vaccine in asthma patients. The study looked at 294 asthma patients who were randomly assigned to receive either the flu vaccine or a placebo (an inactive medication). Seventy-five percent of patients who received the vaccine were on steroids while 70 percent of those who received a placebo were on steroids.

The immune response of patients on inhaled steroid therapy at all doses who received the vaccine was higher than that seen in patients on steroids who received a placebo, said Hanania. However, patients taking inhaled steroids who received the vaccine had a lower immune response to type B influenza than those who were not taking inhaled steroids. This information is important but should be investigated further, he said.

It does not mean that people with asthma should avoid taking the flu vaccine, he said. Protection from influenza A is important because it is the most common form of the flu virus, which can cause serious illness in people with chronic breathing problems such as asthma.