Relevance of antihistamines in the treatment of bronchial asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a chronic disease of the bronchi: causing swelling and spasms of the mucous membrane, it provokes respiratory disorders and asthma attacks. This disease significantly affects the quality of human life, is included in the list of the 20 most common chronic pathologies among the population. Worldwide, about 300 million people suffer from asthma, and this number is projected to increase to 400 million by 2025. Since the first-line therapy is glucocorticosteroid, characterized by the presence of a large number of undesirable effects on drugs, the question of finding an alternative way to treat asthma is quite significant today. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of antihistamines in the treatment of asthma. Materials and methods. We identified potentially relevant studies by searching the electronic databases MEDLINE, SCOPUS, PubMed, Google Scholar and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews over the last 5 years up to November 2022 using the terms: antihistamines, asthma, allergic rhinitis, efficacy, therapy, adverse effects, sedative antihistamines, second generation antihistamines, clinical trials, bronchospasm, histamine. Further, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as independent selection, all the authors of this article selected sources that met the criteria and compiled this review. Results. Therapy of bronchial asthma in combination with allergic rhinitis with antihistamines is effective, and since allergic rhinitis is a frequent comorbidity in cronchial asthma, in view of their associated pathogenesis, antihistamines can be considered quite effective in the treatment of certain types of asthma.