Prospects for COPD treatment

The management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is fundamentally still heavily dependent on the use of bronchodilators and corticosteroids. Therefore, there is a need for alternative, more effective and safer therapeutic approaches. In particular, since inflammation in COPD lungs is often poorly responsive to corticosteroid treatment, novel pharmacological anti-inflammatory approaches are needed to optimally treat COPD patients. There have been multiple attempts to develop drugs that inhibit recruitment and activation of inflammatory cells, such as macrophages, neutrophils and T-lymphocytes, in the lungs of patients with COPD or target inflammatory mediators that are important in the recruitment or activation of these inflammatory cells or released by such cells. This review article focuses on novel classes of anti-inflammatory drugs that have already been tested in humans as possible treatments for patients with COPD.