None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The use of inhaled corticosteroids is well established in asthma, but whether they exert a beneficial effect in smoking related chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is less clear. There are suggestions that patients with COPD who have a disease with similarities to asthma, i.e. a good spirometric response to salbutamol and a pattern of airway inflammation with predominant eosinophils (a characteristic cell in asthma), will respond more favourably to ICS. In this study, we tested our hypothesis that COPD patients with features similar to asthma, i.e. bronchodilator reversibility and an airway eosinophilia would exhibit a better response to ICS. We assessed this using airway biopsies at the beginning and end of a six month ICS study.
Interventions
A randomised, placebo-controlled trial of inhaled fluticasone propionate (500 Mmicrograms twice daily) over six months on airway inflammation in mild to moderate COPD.
Sponsors
GlaxoSmithKline
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
40 Years to 75 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
A physician diagnosis of COPD and evidence of airflow limitation on spirometry.
Exclusion criteria
Potential participants were interviewed and examined by a respiratory physician and any history suggestive of asthma, i.e. symptoms present in childhood, related atopic disorders, eczema or hay fever, significant day-to-day variability or prominent nocturnal symptoms, or a history of wheeze rather than progressive breathlessness and any previous use of ICS excluded that subject from further participation. Other exclusion criteria included significant uncontrolled co-morbidities such as diabetes, angina or cardiac failure, and other co-existing respiratory disorders, i.e. pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer and bronchiectasis.
Outcome results
None listed