NEW YORK, June 29 (UPI) -- A biologic therapy appears to halve wheezing in premature infants, U.S. doctors said Friday.
The medicine -- Synagis (palivizumab) made by Abbott and Medimmune -- is used to treat infants with respiratory syncytial virus, a leading cause of viral respiratory infection among infants.
In a study published in the current issue of Pediatrics, doctors who gave premature infants Synargis to prevent the viral infection were able to reduce incidence of wheezing by 49 percent, compared with pre-term infants who were not given the drug.
The two-year study also found a 51-percent reduction in the incidence of physician-diagnosed recurrent wheezing among the 190 babies taking Synagis compared with 230 untreated infants.
Wheezing is a whistling sound made by air passing through airways narrowed by inflammation or muscle spasms. Synagis is a biologic therapy known as a monoclonal antibody administered monthly to premature infants to prevent serious lower respiratory tract infections.
"With this new study we see that, by preventing the most serious forms of respiratory syncytial virus infections from progressing to its most serious form, Synagis may help protect premature children without chronic lung disease from recurrent wheezing in the first few years of life," said Eric Simoes, professor of pediatric infectious diseases, University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.
The World Health Organization estimates that 64 million people are infected with respiratory syncytial virus each year, and 160,000 will die from this disease. Nearly all children have been infected at least once by the time they reach their second birthday.
