A recent research has suggested that the risk of pneumonia can get increased to as much as 70 percent with the use of inhalers including corticosteroids for treating COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Dr. Sonal Singh, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, was of the view that COPD patients do not get any benefit from making use of the inhalers suggesting that inhalers are ineffective for them.
From Health.discovery.com:
Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, noted the benefit of using steroids to treat COPD is still not clear.
“The issue is of importance as combinations of inhaled steroids and long-acting beta agonists are being increasingly marketed and used for COPD,” Edelman said. “Advair is the main one now, Symbicort is likely to be approved for COPD by the FDA soon, and I am told another is on the way.”
The most reasonable conclusion is that inhaled steroids do indeed increase pneumonia in COPD without increasing death from pneumonia, Edelman said.
“On the other hand, the combinations have been shown to decrease exacerbations of COPD and improve function,” he said. “In addition, some data actually suggest, but do not prove, that they prolong life.”
This study suggests that the beneficial effects of the combinations are due to the long-acting beta agonists — bronchodilators — and not the steroids and implies that the way to treat COPD is with these agents alone, Edelman said. “I am sure that we will see more analyses to this point,” he added.
COPD is a major health problem worldwide, but researchers have yet to make the kind of progress made in other major causes of death, Edelman said.
Inhaled corticosteroids, which are one of the most popular treatment options for asthma, are usually not recommended for COPD patients but Advair, marketed by GlaxoSmithKline and combining steroids with a beta-antagonist, is prescribed.
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