High-dose inhaled versus intravenous salbutamol combined with theophylline in severe acute asthma

The principal aim of this study was to compare the effect of two high doses of inhaled salbutamol with that of one intravenous salbutamol infusion in patients with acute severe asthma. An additional purpose was to determine whether further improvement could be achieved by adding intravenous theophylline to the β 2 -agonist treatment. The study was to comprise a sufficiently large number of patients to enable statistically reliable conclusions to be drawn [10]