Effectiveness of intravenous magnesium sulphate in acute asthma: a retrospective study

Abstract

Objective: The recent interest in intravenous magnesium sulphate for using it in many other indications other than control of eclamptic fits lead the researchers to try it as a smooth muscle relaxant in cases of acute bronchial asthma. The results have largely been controversial, so we conducted this study to determine efficacy of intravenous magnesium sulphate in acute asthma based on its terminal outcome.
Methodology: This retrospective study was conducted at Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women, Nawabshah from January 2014-December 2015. We retrospectively reviewed the medical data sheets of all cases of acute asthma admitted during the study period, and extracted the relevant information. All the patients were initially treated with standard therapy for asthma and then given 4ml of 50% MgSO4 (2g) diluted in 250 ml of normal saline intravenously. Outcomes were presented in percentages and frequencies while patient age is presented as mean ± SD.
Results: The mean age of the population was 45.29 ± 20.1 y. We had a female predominance in our population (60.3%). Successfully cured patients were 32.3% whereas those expired were 57.4%. There was not a significant difference between the genders for the outcome (p > 0.05).
Conclusions: We found that intravenous magnesium sulphate is ineffective in successfully management of patients with acute asthma in terms of enhanced survival rate.