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Indoor mold removal may help asthma sufferers breathe easily

Sep 06, 2007 - MedWire News: Treating asthma sufferers’ homes with fungicides

aimed at removing any visible mold could help to improve breathing and overall

symptoms, researchers suggest.

Although not conclusive proof than mold removal improves asthma outcomes, data

from a UK study suggest that there are benefits to removing mold from the home.

“We have conducted what we believe to be the first randomized controlled trial

to investigate the relationship between indoor mold and asthma,” state

Burr (Cardiff University, UK) and colleagues.

Burr and team sent screening questionnaires to over 5000 people listed as having

asthma by their family doctor or who were already being mailed a housing survey.

They identified 164 homes with at least one occupant with asthma and mold that

had been confirmed onsite by a trained observer.

The team then randomly allocated participants’ homes to be treated, or not

treated, for mold; 81 houses were treated for mold, 83 were not.

Participants were asked to complete a further questionnaire about their symptoms

before their homes were treated and again at 6 and 12 months after treatment.

They were also asked to record peak expiratory flow (PEF) readings every morning

and evening for 2–3 weeks at each time-point.

Burr and team found no objective evidence that asthma symptoms were improved by

mold removal, as variability in PEF readings were not statistically

significantly different between participants in the intervention and control

groups. In fact, reductions in PEF variability tended to be better in the

control arm.

However, subjective measures of improved breathing and reduction in medication

were improved to a greater extent in the intervention group than in the control

group. Fifty patients in the intervention had improved breathing and 33 needed

less medication in the previous 6 months, compared with 24 and 29 patients in

the control group.

The authors say that “it is unlikely that this was entirely a placebo effect.”

Burr et al comment in the journal Thorax: “By 12 months the intervention group

showed significantly greater reductions than the controls in preventer and

reliever use, and more improvement in rhinitis and rhinoconjunctivitis,”.

“The eradication of visible mold is a fairly simple procedure,” they state, and

although there is not objective evidence of improvement there is certainly a

casefor subjective improvement.

They found that mold reappeared in treated houses at 12 months, so repeat

application of fungicides is advised.

Thorax 2007; 62: 766–771