You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 19, Issue 3
  • Long-term antibiotic therapy reduces exacerbation frequency in patients with COPD but it remains unclear which patients to target

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Therapeutics
Systematic review and meta-analysis
Long-term antibiotic therapy reduces exacerbation frequency in patients with COPD but it remains unclear which patients to target
  1. James P Allinson,
  2. Gavin C Donaldson
  1. Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to : Dr Gavin C Donaldson, Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London, Rowland Hill Street, London NW3 2PF, UK; g.donaldson{at}ucl.ac.uk

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/eb-2013-101711

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Commentary on: Herath SC, Poole P. Prophylactic antibiotic therapy for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2013;11:CD009764.

    Context

    Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common, progressive respiratory disease. Acute exacerbations of COPD are key events that inflict significant morbidity, mortality and healthcare utilisation costs.1 Exacerbation prevention is a key strategy by which health-related quality of life and disease prognosis could be improved. There is currently an unmet need for therapeutics which effectively target exacerbations and their consequences.

    Historically, long-term antibiotics have been used to treat COPD.2 Herath and Poole's review examines whether or not this therapy reduces COPD exacerbations and improves clinical outcomes. The limitations of the evidence and the potential …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Copyright information:

    Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions