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Updated: May 15, 2026

Bronchial Thermoplasty: A Novel Therapeutic Approach to Severe Asthma
Published on: November 4, 2010
Short-acting anticholinergic bronchodilation does not increase cardiovascular events in smokers with mild to moderate
Emmy de Jong1, Wouter D van Dijk, Yvonne Heijdra
1Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Background And Objective:
We hypothesized that bronchodilation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) increases the smoke-related risk to develop cardiovascular disease, and aimed to study the effect of short-acting anticholinergic bronchodilation and smoking on cardiovascular events.
Methods:
We performed a secondary analysis on data from the Lung Health Study, a large randomized clinical trial of smokers with mild to moderate pulmonary obstruction, 35-60 years old, without cardiovascular comorbidity. We used Cox proportional survival analysis, controlling for several confounders, to study the effect on 5-year risk of fatal and/or non-fatal cardiovascular events. Secondary outcome encompassed fatal and non-fatal coronary events.
Results:
Of 2745 participants, 23 (0.8%) died of cardiovascular disease. One hundred and sixty-two participants were hospitalized for a cardiovascular event, and 94 participants due to a coronary event. Survival analysis revealed no effect between smoking and short-acting anticholinergic bronchodilation on fatal and/or non-fatal cardiovascular events, hazard ratio = 1.12 (0.58-2.19), nor on coronary events, hazard ratio = 1.46 (0.60-3.56).
Conclusions:
Our study results show that short-acting anticholinergic bronchodilation had no detrimental effect on cardiovascular disease in smokers with mild to moderate pulmonary obstruction.
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