www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | July-August 2013 | Vol 2 | Issue 4 Page 386 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Research Article Comparative evaluation of doxofylline and theophylline in patients of mild bronchial asthma Md Faiz Akram 1,2 *, Mohammad Nasiruddin 1 , Zuber Ahmad 3 , Rahat Ali Khan 1 INTRODUCTION “Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways in which many cells and cellular elements play a role. The chronic inflammation is associated with airway hyper responsiveness that leads to recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and coughing particularly at night or in the early morning. These episodes are usually associated with widespread, but variable, airflow obstruction within the lung that is often reversible either spontaneously or with treatment”. (Operational definition GINA, 2012). 1 It is a common chronic disease worldwide, with an estimated 300 million affected individuals. It appears that the global prevalence of asthma ranges from 1% to 18% of the population in different countries. 2 In India overall prevalence of asthma has been estimated to be 2.38%. 3 As asthma is a chronic disease the morbidity in terms of absence from school, studies and work is much. In analyses of economic burden of asthma, attention should be paid to both direct medical costs (hospital admissions and cost of medications) and indirect, nonmedical costs (time lost from work, premature death). Methylxanthines are well known class of drugs used in asthma. They are orally effective, have bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory action and are of proven clinical effect. 4,5,6 Methylxanthines are important class of drug used as adjuvant in step 3 and 4 of bronchial asthma treatment. In clinical practice it is also used in cases of mild bronchoconstriction, when diagnosis of asthma is ABSTRACT Background: Asthma is common chronic disease worldwide. Methylxanthines has been used in the treatment of asthma. The study was undertaken to compare two Methylxanthines theophylline and doxofylline at doses recommended and commonly used in clinical practice in Mild Bronchial Asthma Patients. Methods: Study was conducted in patients of Mild Bronchial Asthma in TB and chest disease department of a medical college hospital. It was randomized, prospective and open label. A total of 107 patients were divided in two group .Group I was administered 400 mg theophylline SR once daily and group II was administered doxofylline 400 mg twice a day orally. Spirometric variables symptom score, and adverse effects were recorded on day 0, 7 and 21 of therapy. Data were compared and analysed using SPSS version 16. Results: Results of the study showed that there was significant improvement in spirometric variables and clinical symptom score compared to pretreatment values after medication in both groups on 7 th and 21 st days of treatment. But there was no statistically significant difference between improvement in theophylline and doxofylline groups with respect to spirometric variables and symptom score. There was no significant difference in two groups with respect to side effects (p>0.05). Conclusions: It is concluded in Patients of mild Bronchial Asthma Theophylline and doxofylline improve the spirometric and clinical symptoms and doxofylline has no advantage over theophylline in terms of either efficacy or safety on the doses commonly used in current clinical practice. Keywords: Methylxanthines, Theophylline, Doxofylline, Mild Asthma, Bronchodilators, Histone Deacetylation doi: 10.5455/2319-2003.ijbcp20130808 1 Department of Pharmacology, J.N. Medical College, A.M.U. Aligarh U.P. - 202002, India 2 Present Affiliation at Department of Pharmacology, KMCT Medical College, P.O; Manassery, Mukkam, Kozhikode, Kerala, India 3 Department of TB & Respiratory Diseases, J.N. Medical College, A.M.U. Aligarh U.P. - 202002, India Received: 17 April 2013 Accepted: 10 May 2013 *Correspondence to: Dr. MD Faiz Akram, Email: dr.faizakram@gmail.com © 2013 Akram MF et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.