Prevention of acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPDs) are significant events which are associated with worsened quality of life and more rapid decline in lung function.And they also can increase mortality and health care costs.Pharmacologic interventions can alter the frequency of AECOPDs and COPD-related hospitalizations, mainly by focusing on three ways antiinfective agents, antiinflammatory agents and antioxidants which also become the chief clue to the current researches for new drugs and therapies.The combination therapy of inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting β2-adrenoceptor agonists is the most widely recommended strategy for acute exacerbation prevention.But the inhaled corticosteroids possibly increase the risk for pneumonia.Further studies are needed to understand the mechanism of benefit in patient subpopulations, and to compare between efficacy of combination therapy and side-effect with inhaled corticosteroids, bronchodilators, or their combination in different patient phenotypes.We must have a better understanding of the heterogeneity implicit for COPD and the types of COPD exacerbations, and individualized treatments need to be investigated.