Treatment of mild chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an epidemic in many parts of the world. Most patients with COPD demonstrate mild disease. The cornerstone of management of mild disease is smoking cessation, which is the only proven intervention to relieve symptoms, modify its natural history and reduce mortality. For asymptomatic patients, it is the only required therapy. Short-acting bronchodilators can be added on an as needed basis for those with intermittent symptoms and regularly for those with persistent symptoms. Long-acting bronchodilators can be substituted for those who remain symptomatic despite regular use of short-acting bronchodilators. Inhaled corticosteroids do not modify the natural history of COPD and as such cannot be recommended as standalone therapy for mild COPD. However, for patients with refractory and intractable symptoms, they may be used in combination with long-acting beta-2 agonists. Infl uenza and pneumococcal vaccination and pulmonary rehabilitation are other therapies that may be considered for select patients with mild disease. In this paper, we summarize the current standard of care for patients with mild COPD.

Vitamin D3 Attenuates Viral-Induced Inflammation and Fibrotic Responses in Bronchial Smooth Muscle Cells

“…The main limitation to this study is that BSMCs from COPD group were exclusively from subjects with mild COPD because of sample availability. However, it is also known that subjects with mild COPD presented underlying inflammation in the airways and are at increased risk of respiratory infections compared to healthy subjects (37,38). Another limit of the study was that no available data on the vitamin D status or supplements or additional medication for the subjects included in this study, as this information is not available from the supplier.…”

Health-related quality of life and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in early stages – longitudinal results from the population-based KORA cohort in a working age population

“…Although all longitudinal changes found here were small, results indicate that disease progression from early to higher COPD grades implies loss in HRQL. Therefore, efficient interventions that slow disease progression, such as smoking cessation approaches, are not only clinically but also from the perspective of quality of life very reasonable at early stages of disease [ 24 , 25 ]. Our results are in accordance with previous studies which found a negative relationship between HRQL and COPD which increases with disease severity [ 12 , 26 - 30 ].…”