November is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Awareness Month—a chance to educate the public on this serious lung disease that affects 16.4 million adults in the U.S., according to the American Lung Association (ALA), and to provide resources for those diagnosed with the disease to help them live fuller, more active lives. Awareness is clearly needed: Despite being largely a preventable disease, rates of COPD are expected to grow 23% in the next 25 years, according to projections in a 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Today, the ALA estimates that more than 300 million people worldwide could be living with COPD.
The good news? There are more effective therapies available for COPD today than even just a decade ago, offering hope for higher quality of life and breathing function for people living with this condition. To provide insight on the current COPD landscape—and share some promising developments that may be coming just around the corner—we spoke with Jordan Lee, M.D., a pulmonary critical care specialist at Queen’s Pulmonary and Critical Care Group in Honolulu, HI, and panelist for the ALA’s upcoming webinar on COPD management.
HealthCentral: How have COPD treatment options improved during the past 10 years?
Jordan Lee, M.D.: When I was first going through medical training in 2014, we would always treat COPD patients with just one or two inhalers: a long-acting muscarinic agent to relax airway muscles, as well as a long-acting beta agonist, like a bronchodilator, which also relaxes tightened muscles. Those are still very helpful but in general, we have a better understanding now when it comes to the pathophysiology of COPD and how it’s affected by chronic airway
Because of that, there’s been a shift toward triple therapy for COPD, which includes those two options, as well as inhaled corticosteroids. That’s become the gold standard because it’s hitting three different pathways in the respiratory system, leading to better breathing. This [approach] reduces symptoms and lowers the rate of COPD exacerbations in a year.
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