2023 Canadian Thoracic Society Guideline on Pharmacotherapy in Patients with Stable COPD
2023 Canadian Thoracic Society Guideline on Pharmacotherapy in Patients with Stable COPD
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patient care must include confirming a diagnosis with postbronchodilator spirometry. Because of the clinical heterogeneity and the reality that airflow obstruction assessed by spirometry only partially reflects disease severity, a thorough clinical evaluation of the patient should include assessment of symptom burden and risk of exacerbations that permits the implementation of evidence-informed pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions. This guideline provides recommendations from a comprehensive systematic review with a meta-analysis and expert-informed clinical remarks to optimize maintenance pharmacological therapy for individuals with stable COPD, and a revised and practical treatment pathway based on new evidence since the 2019 update of the Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) Guideline. The key clinical questions were developed using the Patients/Population (P), Intervention(s) (I), Comparison/Comparator (C), and Outcome (O) model for 3 questions that focuses on the outcomes of symptoms (dyspnea)/health status, acute exacerbations and mortality. The evidence from this systematic review and meta-analysis leads to the recommendation that all symptomatic patients with spirometry-confirmed COPD should receive long-acting bronchodilator maintenance therapy. Those with moderate to severe dyspnea (modified Medical Research Council ≥2) and/or impaired health status (COPD Assessment Test ≥10) and a low risk of exacerbations should receive combination therapy with a long-acting muscarinic antagonist/long-acting ẞ2-agonist (LAMA/LABA). For those with a moderate/severe dyspnea and/or impaired health status and a high risk of exacerbations should be prescribed triple combination therapy (LAMA/LABA/ICS) azithromycin, roflumilast or N-Acetylcysteine is recommended for specific populations; a recommendation against the use of theophylline, maintenance systemic oral corticosteroids such as prednisone and mono-ICS is made for all COPD patients.
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