“There had been groups and physicians who advocated that we should advise parents not to use acetaminophen in children with asthma”.
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The small percentage of kids whose asthma symptoms worsened was about the same with both medications, according to the study published in the August 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Acetaminophen Versus Ibuprofen in Children with Asthma (AVICA) trial, led by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Asthma Network (AsthmaNet), is the only blinded, randomized, controlled trial to date to prospectively compare acetaminophen head-to-head with ibuprofen (Motrin, etc.) in children with asthma.
The trial found that the number of asthma exacerbations per child averaged 0.81 in the acetaminophen group versus 0.87 in the ibuprofen group.
The researchers said that the result should help address safety concerns related to giving acetaminophen to asthmatic kids. It observed over 300 children between the ages of 1 and 5 who have asthma and randomly gave someone either Tylenol or Motrin during one year. “So from past studies, we couldn’t tell if it was the acetaminophen or the virus that was causing the increased likelihood of the asthma episodes”. The prospective, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study, funded by NIH, assigned children aged 12-59 months to receive either acetaminophen 160 mg/5 mL or ibuprofen 100 mg/5 mL as needed to relieve fever or pain during a 48-week period. There also was no difference in the number of unscheduled medical visits between groups. Earlier theories stated that children had exacerbations of their asthma when receiving Tylenol for pain or fever. Phipatanakul W et al.
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The percentage of days with full asthma control were virtually the same for acetaminophen and ibuprofen: 85.8 and 86.8 percent, respectively. New England Journal of Medicine. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient-care institutions in the nation, now ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.
