Therapy

Why?

• Continuous nebulisers lead to a greater improvement in FEV ₁ at 2 hours than intermittent nebulisers . Low dose continuous nebulisers (2.5 mg salbutamol) appear to give the same benefit as high dose intermittent nebulisers (5.0 mg salbutamol). ^a
• Multiple doses of anticholinergics added to beta-agonists improve FEV ₁ (on average 14 ml) and reduce hospital admissions, without clearly increasing side-effects. ^a 

Multiple doses of anticholinergics reduce hospital admissions

Patient	Treatment	Comparison	Outcome	CER	OR (95% CI)	NNT (95% CI)
asthma exacerbation a	multiple doses of ipratropium	no ipratropium	hospitalisation at 60 minutes	34%	0.62 (0.39 to 0.98)	10 (6 to 220)