The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7214 p314
7 September 2002

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Analogue could provide new therapy for asthma patients

An analogue of the eicosanoid lipoxin A4, and related compounds, may provide a new approach to treating pulmonary inflammation and bronchial hyper-responsiveness in patients with asthma, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that an analogue of lipoxin A4 inhibited both airway hyper-responsiveness and inflammation in response to allergen sensitisation and aerosol challenge in a murine model of asthma.

They comment that rather than inhibiting a single class of airway mediators to control asthma, lipoxin mimetics and their stable analogues could promote resolution of inflammation via multiple mechanisms.

The study is published in Nature Medicine (2002;8:1018).