Safety of Long-Acting Beta-Agonists in Children with Asthma

Has there ever been more of a Jekyll-and-Hyde protein than the airway β2 receptor? Short-acting beta-agonists give rapid relief from bronchospasm, but their overuse is a factor in asthma-related deaths, and the less-selective agents have been associated with epidemics of patients dying during acute asthma attacks. In children with uncontrolled asthma, the Best Add-on Therapy Giving Effective Responses (BADGER) study showed that the addition of long-acting beta-agonists (LABAs) was more effective than increasing the dose of inhaled glucocorticoids in controlling asthma,1 but the accompanying editorial2 highlighted the limited evidence regarding the safety of this approach and instead favored increasing . . .