Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who take inhaled steroids after discharge from hospital are more likely to survive.

In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) damage to lung tissue leaves the patient very breathless and increasingly disabled. Researchers at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, in Canada, have been looking at the effect of inhaled steroid treatment on a group of elderly patients with COPD.

They studied nearly 7,000 patients for a period of three years. This revealed that patients taking inhaled corticosteroids for their condition, on discharge from hospital, were approximately 25 per cent less likely to die - from any cause - than those who did not take them. What is more, patients on high to moderate doses of steroids were more likely to survive than those on lower doses. In other words, COPD patients can benefit from treatment with steroids on discharge from hospital - and higher doses are more effective than low ones.

Source

European Respiratory Journal February 2003