Yakugaku zasshi : Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan
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Disturbance of the normal mucociliary clearance due to hyperproduction of mucus and modification of its physicochemical characteristics is a common finding in airway diseases. Drugs that affect airway secretion have been developed and used to cleanse the respiratory tract for many centuries and in many countries. On the basis of the mechanism of their actions, the mucoactive drugs are classified into several groups. ⋯ On the basis of this idea, glucocorticoids are ideal mucoactive drugs because they exert various pharmacologic effects in the lung. From a polypharmacologic point of view, a traditional Chinese medicine can be classified as a glucocorticoid-like drug because Chinese medicines consist of many types of active components that have various pharmacologic effects. As one future course of research, we believe that efforts to seek compatible actions between glucocorticoids and Oriental medicines may lead to new opportunities for development of ideal airway-cleansing drugs with specific actions, i.e., suppression of gene expression.