Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Treatment and Pharmacist-Led Medication Management

Abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death across the globe. Its repeated exacerbation will seriously worsen the quality of life, aggravate the patients’ symptoms, and bring a heavy burden on the patients and the society. Understanding the current status of drug therapy and the role of pharmaceutical care is essential for the management of COPD. In addition to the drugs already on the market, recent clinical trials also show that emerging novel drugs for treating COPD are being developed to prevent the symptoms, reduce the frequency of acute exacerbation, and improve the quality of life. Recent progress in new drug research should lead to novel treatment options for COPD patients in future clinical practice. The pharmaceutical care has shown significantly favourable impacts on addressing drug-related problems, supporting its vital role in the management of COPD, especially when there are a wide range of therapeutic agents. This review not only provides an overview of current treatment strategies but also further underlines the importance of new drug development and pharmaceutical care for patients with COPD.

Keywords:

• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• drugs
• clinical trial
• complications
• pharmaceutical care

Abbreviations

AE, adverse events; AECOPD, acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; FEV1, forced expiratory volume in one second; HRQoL, health-related quality of life; ICS, inhaled corticosteroids; ICU, intensive care unit; IFN-β, interferon beta; LAMAs, long-acting muscarinic antagonists; LABAs, long-acting beta-agonists; PDE, phosphodiesterases; PH, pulmonary hypertension; SAMAs, short-acting muscarinic antagonists; TLR, Toll-like receptor; WHO, World Health Organization.

Author Contributions

All authors made significant contributions to the conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; took part in drafting, revising or critically reviewing the article; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest for this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (No. LYY19H280006), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81503129), the Zhejiang Provincial Science Technology Projects of Traditional Chinese Medicine (No. 2021ZB174), the Clinical Research Projects of Zhejiang Medical Association (No. 2019ZYC-A85).