Fixed combination therapies in COPD – effect on quality of life

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Authors: Beatrix Groneberg-Kloft, Axel Fischer, Tobias Welte

Published Date January 2007 Volume 2007:2(4) Pages 551 - 557

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/COPD.S

Beatrix Groneberg-Kloft^1,2, Axel Fischer², Tobias Welte¹

¹Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; ²Division of Allergy Research, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Free University and Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany

Abstract: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) represents a major global cause of disability and death. COPD is currently the fourth most common global cause of death and also exerts an enormous toll on patients quality of life. The present database analysis aimed to identify clinical trials using fixed combination therapies that have assessed the impact on the patients quality of life. Within the different studies, questionnaires including the George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) the Chronic Respiratory Disease Questionnaire (CRDQ) and the Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ) were used and differing results in quality of life were obtained when combination therapies such as fluticasone/salmeterol or fluticasone/salmeterol were compared with monotherapies. While there were some differences in favor of combination therapies reported when the combination therapy was compared to inhaled steroid monotherapy there were no consistent differences when combination therapies were compared to bronchodilator monotherapies. Future trials will lead to a proof-of-principle stage concerning the use of combination therapies.

Keywords: COPD, combination therapy, corticoid, steroid, corticosteroid

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