A four-year-long study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and the inhaled anticholinergic drug, Spiriva, reveals patients are often able to breathe easier when Spiriva is added to a more conventional course of treatment but the drug does not slow the progression of disease nor does it reverse damage to lung function, outcomes the research team had hoped to find.

University of California, Las Angeles (UCLA) researcher, Donald P. Tashkin, MD, and an international team of colleagues tested the long-term use of Spiriva on 6,000 COPD patients worldwide, with the goal of proving Spiriva could actually reverse lost lung function and slow the progression of the disease. While a slowing or reversal of disease was not apparent in this study, there was significant improvement of lung function, enhanced quality of life, and fewer disease exacerbations when Spiriva was added to several different classes of medications prescribed to improve respiratory ability. Such exacerbations are described as coughing, purulent sputum, shortness of breath, and/or wheezing for three days or longer and to the point of needing steroid or antibiotic intervention.

Tashkin reports in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine that death from respiratory issues, including respiratory failure, and death from cardiac event were both reduced throughout the four-year study period when patients supplemented their medication regimen with Spiriva. Anticholinergic drugs, such as Spiriva, work by keeping open the muscles that surround the large airways. Of all anticholinergic drugs on the market, Spiriva is the only long-acting drug in this class.

Proponents of the UCLA study suggest furthering the Spiriva research on subsets of COPD patients with differing symptoms and in conjunction with the differing drugs used to treat different symptoms, as different classes of drugs and different symptoms of COPD may respond differently when Spiriva is a part of the treatment program.

At this point in time, the only known way to alleviate COPD symptoms and disease progression is to quit smoking cigarettes.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer, both makers of Spiriva, funded this study and contributed three study investigators from Boehringer Ingelheim’s staff of scientists.