Antiallergic effects of terfenadine on immediate type hypersensitivity reactions

Terfenadine dose-dependently inhibited rat homologous PCA (2.5-10 mg/kg, p.o.) and experimentally-induced asthma in guinea pigs (0.5-5 mg/kg, p.o.). Similarly, metabolites I and II dose-dependently inhibited experimentally-induced asthma but their respective potencies were approximately 1/2 and 1/15th that of terfenadine. These results suggest that the metabolites contribute to the antiallergic effects of terfenadine. In ex vivo, terfenadine (5-20 mg/kg, p.o.) also inhibited the release of both antigen-induced histamine and SRS-A from sensitized guinea pig lung samples and that of histamine from rat peritoneal mast cells. Terfenadine dose-dependently increased the cAMP content in rat mast cells and in the lungs; in the latter, the augmented cAMP is associated with an increase in adenylate cyclase activity, but not with the inhibition of phosphodiesterase activity. The above evidence indicates that the inhibitory effects of terfenadine on mediator release from mast cells are in some way related to its antiallergic effects, and that an elevated cAMP content may be effective to enhance mediator release inhibition.