[Limitations of drug prescriptions in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease]

National and international guidelines have described in detail the role of bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids for the management of patients with chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD). Such guidelines are identical to marketing approval documents in France. The French marketing approval, which limits use of bronchodilators to reversible COPD, is no longer coherent with recent evidence demonstrating the poor reproducibility of reversibility tests and the absence of correlation between reversibility and dyspnea relief. France has not delivered marketing authorization for any inhaled corticosteroid for the treatment of COPD. Clinical trials versus placebo have demonstrated that inhaled corticosteroids do not slow down the decline in ventilatory function but that they do diminish the risk of exacerbation. Decreased risk of exacerbation could be clinically pertinent in patients with severe COPD who often experience exacerbations requiring to specialist management. Inquiries concerning precriptions for COPD show that the majority of patients are treated by inhaled corticosteroids, demonstrating the gap between medical practice and national and international recommendations and marketing approval documents.