Regional differences in rate of FEV1 decline in COPD: lessons from SUMMIT

A publication by Zhou et al. [1], who studied 841 patients from China with mild to moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage I and II) for 2 years, documented a 22 mL per year beneficial effect of tiotropium compared with placebo on rate of forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1). This effect was over three times larger than the 6 mL per year (95% CI 1 to 11 mL per year) reported by Decramer et al. [2] in the 2739 GOLD stage II patients from the 4-year UPLIFT trial. We hypothesised that the large difference in results in patients with COPD with similar degree of airflow limitation at study entry could be related to regional differences in response to similar pharmacological treatment. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the regional differences in FEV1 decline in patients in the COPD Study to Understand Mortality and MorbidITy (SUMMIT), all of whom had spirometric GOLD stage II COPD at enrolment [3].
Source: European Respiratory Journal - Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Original Articles: Research letters Source Type: research