Nicoleta Bâscă, I.P. Stoiescu *
* Dr. Nicoleta Bâscă, Prof. Dr. I.P. Stoiescu – Institutul de Pneumoftiziologie “Marius Nasta”
Abstract
The role of anticholonergic drugs in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may be estimated by analysing the clinical and functional bronhodilatator effects . For assesing the objective response to the treatment with anticolinerigc agents, we had in view the improvement of exercise performance and FEV, values in relation with reference values and/or baseline FEV, values. Twenty patients aged between 40 – 70 years old with sever COPD assessed by the FEV, values, were submitted to the lung function tests (pulmonary volumes, maximal expiratory flow s, airways resistence) and to the walking test (6 min. walk) before and after four and eight weeks of treatment with 40 µg ipratropiumbromide (Atrovent – Boehringer Ingelheim), three times a day. The results showed a chlinical and functional improvement in 75% of cases after 4 weeks of treatment with ipratropium bromide, improvement of exercise performance at 85% of cases. Anticholinergic drugs may havea considerable bronhodilatator effects, leading to the decrease of COPD severity.