Macrolides are effective in reducing the number of exacerbations in COPD patients with the frequent exacerbator phenotype. Our study did not show a persistent effect of azithromycin on exacerbation frequencies after more than one year of usage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Maintenance treatment with macrolide antibiotics has shown to be effective in reducing exacerbations in COPD patients. A major concern with prolonged treatment with antibiotics is the development of bacterial resistance. In this study we determined the effect of azithromycin on the development and acquisition of resistance to macrolides in the nasopharyngeal flora in COPD patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Maintenance treatment with macrolides are useful in preventing COPD exacerbations. We investigated which characteristics of COPD patients with frequent exacerbations predicted the best response to maintenance treatment with azithromycin.
Methods: This study was part of the COLUMBUS trial, a prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 92 COPD patients with frequent exacerbations.
In this study, we investigated the occurrence of viral infections in acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during four seasons. Viral infections were detected by the use of real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction on pharyngeal swabs. During a 12-month period pharyngeal swabs were obtained in 136 exacerbations of 63 patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Macrolide resistance is an increasing problem; there is therefore debate about when to implement maintenance treatment with macrolides in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We aimed to investigate whether patients with COPD who had received treatment for three or more exacerbations in the previous year would have a decrease in exacerbation rate when maintenance treatment with azithromycin was added to standard care.
Methods: We did a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-centre trial in The Netherlands between May 19, 2010, and June 18, 2013.
Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by progressive development of airflow limitation that is poorly reversible. Because of a poor understanding of COPD pathogenesis, treatment is mostly symptomatic and new therapeutic strategies are limited. There is a direct relationship between the severity of the disease and the intensity of the inflammatory response.
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