Cough is one of the significant health problems having greater consequence for impaired quality of life. Acute and chronic coughs that are due to viral or bacterial infections, bronchial asthma and allergic conditions including cough variant asthma are regularly treated with combination of expectorants, mucolytics and bronchodilators. Bronchodilators can decrease the cough sensitivity and also help clearance of cough secretions, reducing prominent inflammatory mediator release.

The objective of this analysis was to understand the clinical efficacy and safety of Bronchodilatory cough formulations (BCF) which contains levosalbutamol in real world settings.

A cross sectional, prospective cohort analysis known as Bronchodilatory coUgh formulary Survey, (BUS) was conducted to evaluate the utilization of levosalbutamol cough formulations at 40 centres connecting general and consultant physicians throughout India. Successive prescription records (n=1367) that involved levosalbutamol were collected for analyses. Baseline demographics involved adults (21%) and children (79%) with mean age of 11.1 years with almost 60% males and 40% females.

Levosalbutamol BCF was generally prescribed for almost 69.7% of lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI), 14.8% of acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis (AECB), 8.5% of bronchial asthma and 5% of allergic rhinitis. In both adults and children, the predominant risk factors were smoking and allergic rhinitis, respectively. In many cases, cough severity was evaluated by utilizing Fisman scale score (0-4). Mean cough score was improved from baseline score of 3 to 0.8 with corresponding improvement in accompanying symptoms of wheeze and sputum. In most of the LRTI or acute exacerbation cases with purulent sputum, antibiotics were prescribed. Side effects that were observed included tremor (1%), vomiting (0.7%) and palpitation (0.9%), which were mild and temporary in many cases requiring no withdrawal of treatment.

The analyses gave the conclusion that levosalbutamol containing bronchodilatory cough formulation is safe and also an effective option, especially for adults and children in managing acute and chronic cough in COPD, allergic rhinitis or bronchial asthma.

Source: Vora A, Bhargava A. A Cross-sectional Cohort Analyses Assessing Response to Levosalbutamol Bronchodilatory Cough Formulations in Outpatient Community Settings of India: BUS analyses. J Assoc Physicians India. 2016 Sep;64(9):45-48. PMID: 27762515.