Risks of Salmeterol?

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
I have a large geriatric-internal medicine practice. I have enthusiastically adopted the use of the salmeterol inhaler (twice a day) for my patients as a way to improve compliance. In the past three months, two elderly patients with moderately severe asthma have had fatal respiratory arrests at home. Both were found holding their inhalers. Both had been told that they should expect a delay of a half-hour to an hour in the onset of the action of salmeterol and that they could use their previous inhaler (albuterol) for emergencies, but they did not do so.