Patients with chronic smoker’s bronchitis often suffer from increased
pressure in the blood vessels supplying the lung (pulmonary
hypertension). The blood pressure increases further during exercise
and can lead to severe limitation of physical activity.
In patients with other diseases causing pulmonary hypertension, for
instance rheumatic or heart conditions, drug therapy has been shown
to improve exercise capacity and decrease mortality.
Daiana Stolz (University Hospital Basel, Switzerland) and her
colleagues wanted to find out whether patients with severe chronic
bronchitis also benefit from treatment of pulmonary hypertension.
They compared the effect of the lung vasodilator bosentan, a standard
therapy for pulmonary hypertension, with the effect of placebo in 30
patients with severe chronic bronchitis.
All patients underwent several tests including lung function and
computed tomography before and after the three months of therapy.
The study shows that, in contrast to patients with other causes of
pulmonary hypertension, chronic bronchitis patients do not improve
their exercise capacity if treated with bosentan.
This study also suggests that the treatment of pulmonary hypertension
in patients with chronic bronchitis reduces the amount of oxygen in
the blood. "Although we hoped to alleviate breathlessness by treating
patients this way, we could not identify any benefit of the therapy,"
said Daiana Stolz.
Title Of The Original Article
A randomised, controlled trial of bosentan in severe COPD
The European Respiratory Journal is the peer-reviewed scientific publication of the European Respiratory Society (more than 8,000 specialists in lung diseases and respiratory medicine in Europe, the
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European Respiratory Journal
The European Respiratory Society (ERS)
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