Treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease should start early, study says

摘要

It has been shown that treatment with inhaled tiotropium at an earlier stage of COPD can lessen the decline of lung function. Marc Decramer from the University Hospital, University of Leuven, Belgium, and his colleagues made their conclusions based on the UPLIFT study. The study shows that treatment should begin at an earlier stage.The UPLIFT study in fact investigated patients at all disease stages, but the authors in this paper performed a subgroup analysis of prespecified patients specifically at Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage II (moderate disease). A total of 2739 patients had GOLD stage II at randomization.