For children who need to go to the ER because of a severe asthma attack, giving them an intravenous infusion of magnesium sulphate along with conventional medications provides an additional benefit, Hong Kong doctors report.

Dr. D. K. L. Cheuk, at the University of Hong Kong, and colleagues analyzed clinical trials involving a total of 182 children. The studies evaluated the effects of intravenous magnesium sulphate with or without inhaled beta-2-agonist bronchodilators and oral steroid drugs in subjects suffering acute asthma who were seen in the emergency department.

The main point was to see if the treatment kept the children from being hospitalized for treatment.

“After pooling the results together, intravenous magnesium sulphate was effective in avoiding hospitalization,” Cheuk’s team reports in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

A significant improvement was also seen with magnesium treatment in short-term lung function tests and symptom scores.

Given these results, the investigators conclude, “Intravenous magnesium sulphate is likely to be effective in avoiding hospitalization and improving bronchoconstriction and clinical symptoms of moderate to severe acute asthma in children, when added to standard therapies of inhaled bronchodilators and systemic steroids.”

SOURCE: Archives of Disease in Childhood, January 2005.