State of the Heart in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: The Best Is Yet to Come

摘要

We recently enjoyed reading the article by Stone and colleagues on pharmacologic pulmonary deflation and cardiovascular structure and function in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It describes the findings of a phase Ⅲb, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-center clinical trial performed on 45 out of 96 screened patients; the study shows the improvement of the right ventricular end-diastolic volume index, paralleled by a reduction of residual volume after a 7- to 14-day treatment with fluticasone furoate/vilanterol. Changes in cardiac parameters were assessed through cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR).