Madan Dubey, Vikash Kumar, Kumar Ankur Prakash, Sanjay Kumar
BACKGROUND Incidence of bronchial asthma has dramatically increased in last 2 to 3 decades. Inhalation therapy is the treatment of choice in acute exacerbation of asthma. Levosalbutamol (R-salbutamol) has been shown in different studies to be superior to racemic salbutamol (mixture of equal amount of (R) - and (S)- salbutamol). Thus, the present study was conducted to compare response of reversibility of bronchoconstriction and tolerability of inhaled levosalbutamol versus salbutamol. MATERIALS AND METHODS A study was done on 274 patients from November 2016 to September 2018. All patients received either salbutamol (2.5 mg) or levosalbutamol (0.63 mg) by nebulisation for 3 times at interval of 20 minute all parameters like FEV1, FVC, HR, RR, SPO2, PEFR were recorded before starting treatment and after 1 hour of 1st nebulisation in both groups, and comparative study was done. RESULTS Both inhaled salbutamol and levosalbutamol were effective equally in bronchodilatation in acute exacerbation of Asthma. There was increase in heart rate in salbutamol inhalation but there was no significant change in HR in levosalbutamol group. CONCLUSION Both levosalbutamol and salbutamol showed significant improvement in acute exacerbation of bronchial asthma. There was increase in HR with salbutamol, but no significant change was observed in HR with levosalbutamol. Less dose of levosalbutamol produced the same effect and clinical improvement as compared to salbutamol.