NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Patients with bronchiectasis not related to cystic fibrosis benefit significantly from regular twice-daily nebulized gentamicin therapy, a Scottish team reports in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Medicine published online September 24.

Dr. Maeve P. Murray of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and University of Edinburgh and colleagues point out there are few evidenced-based treatments for bronchiectasis. Local delivery of antibiotics to reduce bacterial burden and consequent inflammation has shown promise, but there have been only four randomized controlled trials of nebulized antibiotics.

The current study was designed to assess the efficacy of continuous nebulized gentamicin therapy over 1 year in patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis chronically infected with a variety of pathogens, and to see if benefits were maintained during a 3-month treatment-free follow up period.

The investigators randomized 65 patients to receive either nebulized 80 mg gentamicin twice daily or nebulized 0.9% saline twice daily; 57 patients completed the study.

The primary endpoint was a reduction of 1 log unit or greater in bacterial load in sputum,