New bronchodilators have an edge over older medications for patients with COPD, says Dr Christopher Worsnop
Newer bronchodilators have an edge over older medications for patients with COPD, says Dr Christopher Worsnop.
Bronchodilators are the main inhaler medications used for first-line treatment of COPD.
There are two types of bronchodilators: muscarinic antagonists (which used to be called anticholinergics) and beta agonists.
Long-acting muscarinic antagonistsare called LAMAs and long-acting beta agonists are called LABAs.
The older, short-acting bronchodilators require “multiple puffs, multiple times a day, so that’s why we favour the longer ones”, Dr Christopher Worsnop, a respiratory and sleep physician at Austin Hospital in Melbourne, says.
“We tend to use the muscarinic antagonists first and we prefer to use the long-acting ones because it’s much more convenient for patients to take,” he says.
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