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Corticosteroids

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Principles of Immunopharmacology

Summary

Corticosteroids are the most effective therapy for chronic immune and inflammatory diseases in current use. Despite their success over the past 50 years, and especially since the advent of new potent halogenated compounds, worries about the detrimental side-effects of systemic corticosteroids has limited their effectiveness in severe disease. This has resulted in the increasing use of TOPICAL corticosteroids targeted to the site of inflammation rather than systemic administration. Improvements in risk/benefit ratios are likely to occur, as greater understanding of the role of chemical substitutions of the synthetic corticosteroid becomes clear, and more potent tissue selective drugs are developed. Drugs that target distinct aspects of corticosteroid function, switching on or off genes, are also under development and along with non-steroidal agents that target different aspects of the inflammatory response are likely to lead to safer drugs with a much reduced side-effect profile. However, until these become widely available, current systemic and TOPICAL corticosteroids are likely to remain the major treatment for most inflammatory diseases.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Airways Disease Section, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Guy Scadding Building, Dovehouse Street, London, SW3 6LY, UK

    Ian M. Adcock

  2. Department of Thoracic Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Guy Scadding Building, Dovehouse Street, London, SW3 6LY, UK

    Kazuhiro Ito

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology and Pathophysiology, Sorbonnelaan 16, 3584 CA, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Frans P. Nijkamp

  2. PLIVA Research Institute Ltd., Prilaz baruna Filipovića 29, HR-10 000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Michael J. Parnham

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© 2005 Birkhäuser Verlag

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Adcock, I.M., Ito, K. (2005). Corticosteroids. In: Nijkamp, F.P., Parnham, M.J. (eds) Principles of Immunopharmacology. Birkhäuser Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-7643-7408-X_26

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