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Therapies for COPD

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 7, pages 285–286 (2008)Cite this article

COPD evolves slowly and progressively, and disease progression is estimated traditionally with lung-function tests such as spirometry measures of forced expiratory volume (FEV1). Patients are classified as mild (greater than 80% of FEV1), moderate (50–80% FEV1), severe (less than 50% FEV1) and very severe (less than 50% FEV1 with chronic respiratory failure or less than 30% FEV1). Lung function is also closely related to mortality rate, as nearly 35% of severe to very severe COPD patients die of the disease within 12 years compared with only 5% of mild to moderate patients4.

According to 2007 estimates5 by the World Health Organization (WHO), there are currently 210 million patients with COPD, and 3 million people died of COPD in 2005. The WHO predicts that COPD will become the fourth leading cause of death worldwide by 2030. Several factors are expected to contribute to this increase, including increased diagnosis rates, lack of treatments that reverse the inflammatory disease progression and a globally ageing population burden. The WHO has estimated that 73% of COPD mortality is related to smoking, with nearly 90% of these deaths occurring in nations of low and middle income5. Populations in poorer countries are more likely than wealthier ones to develop the disease owing to many factors such as exposure to pollutants, high smoking rates and poor health care that subsequently increase the risk of COPD5.

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Figure 1: Trends in relative sales contribution by therapy classes used to treat COPD.
Figure 2: Proportion of sales (US$) by region for the COPD indication in the year ending September 2007.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank P. Barnes and D. Hanicq for their valuable input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Uma Yasothan is a Senior Consultant and Santwana Kar is a Business Analyst at IMS Health, 7 Harewood Avenue, London NW1 6JB, UK.,

    Uma Yasothan & Santwana Kar

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  1. Uma Yasothan
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  2. Santwana Kar
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Correspondence to Uma Yasothan.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease

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Yasothan, U., Kar, S. Therapies for COPD. Nat Rev Drug Discov 7, 285–286 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd2533

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