Pulmonary therapeutics: Rethinking the regimens and re-imagining the targets

摘要

The principal therapies for asthma are based on adrenaline and cortisol. For chronic obstructive airways disease, anti-muscarinics and phosphodiesterase inhibitors may be added to these pharmacological classes of agents. There are no agents widely registered for treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Treatment of cystic fibrosis remains more focused on consequences than causes, although the genotype-specific CFTR channel modulator, Ivacaftor, has recently entered clinical use [1]. Thus, the high impact conditions of significant prevalence affecting the lung have not seen innovation translate into new treatments in the frequency that one may have hoped, or even expected, based on the vast efforts being made to discover and develop novel agents.