COPD treatment options and outcomes

COPD

Up to 65 million people worldwide are currently living with moderate to severe COPD.* To help ease this burden, ResMed helps you provide individualised treatment for your patients with COPD helping them breathe easier, and work towards a more promising picture with every breath.

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Although there is currently no cure for COPD, treatments are available to help COPD patients with their day-to-day relief and long-term disease management.

The primary goals of treating COPD are to:

Relieve symptoms
Slow disease progression
Prevent and treat exacerbations
Optimise lung function
Reduce mortality.¹

Given the progressive nature of COPD, treatment plans will vary depending on which stage of the disease your patients are facing.

Treating acute exacerbations of COPD

Depending on the severity, patients experiencing acute exacerbations of COPD often suffer from increased airflow limitation, increased sputum production, airway inflammation, and respiratory insufficiency that can result in hypoxia, hypercapnia and respiratory acidosis.²

Recommended treatments for acute exacerbations may include:

Short-and long-acting bronchodilators
Inhaled corticosteroids
Antibiotics
Mucolytic agents
Oxygen therapy
Non-invasive ventilation.²

While oxygen therapy is used to treat hypoxemic patients with impaired gas exchange or pulmonary failure, it does not adequately address carbon dioxide (CO₂) retention in hypercapnic patients with ventilatory failure – but non-invasive ventilation can.³

The GOLD guidelines conclude that using non-invasive ventilation to manage acute exacerbations of COPD improves respiratory acidosis, decreases respiratory rate, reduces the severity of breathlessness, and lowers the rate of complications such as ventilator-associated pneumonia.¹

Close to 20% of COPD patients who are hospitalised for an acute exacerbation are readmitted within 30 days.⁴Another study found a readmission rate of 63% over a mean follow-up of 1.1 years.⁵

Using non-invasive ventilation to treat acute exacerbations in hospital has been shown to not only reduce readmission and lengths of stay, but also reduce the incidence of mortality and intubation.⁶ The prescribed use of non-invasive ventilation at home following COPD hospitalisation also suggests similar benefits.⁸

Treating chronic stable COPD

The long-term management of COPD seeks to optimise lung function, prevent exacerbations and slow disease progression. This often includes a self-management plan with multidisciplinary treatments tailored to suit individual patients.

Recommended treatments for better long-term outcomes may include:

Smoking cessation
Pulmonary rehabilitation
Influenza vaccination
Education and counselling
Oxygen therapy
Non-invasive ventilation.²

With increasing burdens on our healthcare system, there has been interest shown for the use of non-invasive ventilation, not only when treating acute exacerbations, but also as a preventative therapy in the long-term management of COPD.²

Clinical outcomes with non-invasive ventilation

A range of studies show encouraging findings when non-invasive ventilation is added to the treatment of COPD:

Reduced incidence of intubation for COPD patients in hospital on non-invasive ventilation compared to those on usual medical care.⁶
3-day reduction in the length of stay in hospital for admitted COPD patients on non-invasive ventilation.⁶
76% reduced risk of mortality for hypercapnic COPD patients on long-term non-invasive ventilation.⁷
32% reduction in hospital costs when COPD patients were treated with non-invasive ventilation at the time of hospital admission compared to those on usual medical care.⁹
5.6 point improvement in patient quality of life using St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire.⁷

Evidence for adding non-invasive ventilation to COPD treatment at home

1. Improved survival for COPD patients

In a recent prospective, randomised controlled trial (Koehnlein et al. 2014), clinicians studied the use of home-based non-invasive ventilation compared to standard therapy for patients with stable hypercapnic COPD.

After a follow-up period of 12 months, the risk of mortality was 76% lower in the intervention group compared to the control group. Improvements were also reported for patient quality of life and exercise tolerance. 7⁷

Reduction in mortality in hypercapnic COPD patients on non-invasive ventilation therapy

2. Clinical benefits for nocturnal non-invasive ventilation at home

A 2-year study (Duiverman et al. 2011) has demonstrated various clinical benefits for adding non-invasive ventilation to COPD treatment at home compared to pulmonary rehabilitation alone. The study reported improvements to the following outcomes, with benefits also increasing over time:

Health-related quality of life and mood
Arterial blood gas exchange
Exercise tolerance and activity levels
Lung function, including FEV1.10

3. Home non-invasive ventilation reduces hospital readmissions

trospective study (Galli et al. 2014) assessed the outcomes for patients who were prescribed non-invasive ventilation at home compared to those who were not prescribed non-invasive ventilation.

Analysed data showed that patients who had been prescribed non-invasive ventilation at discharge were less likely to have been readmitted to hospital or readmitted with a stay in the intensive care unit.8

Effect of prior home non-invasive ventilation on event-free survival following readmission

Home non-invasive ventilation reduces hospital readmissions

4. Home non-invasive ventilation reduces the probability of recurrent respiratory failure

A pilot trial (Cheung et al. 2010 ) observed that COPD patients with acute hypercapnic respiratory failure (AHRF) were less likely to experience a recurrent severe exacerbation when treated with non-invasive ventilation compared to treatment with CPAP. The prevalence of patients developing recurrent AHRF in the non-invasive ventilation group compared to the CPAP group was 38.5% to 60.2% at 1 year.¹¹

Effect of CPAP vs. non-invasive ventilation on patients with AHRF

Conclusion

With clinical evidence suggesting that non-invasive ventilation can improve quality of life and survival,⁷ and also help reduce the length of hospital stays and readmission rates,⁶ ResMed is working with respiratory physicians, healthcare systems and payors to increase awareness of non-invasive ventilation therapy, and has developed intelligent non-invasive ventilation solutions that are suitable for the treatment of COPD.

By choosing ResMed’s non-invasive solutions when treating COPD patients, you can provide an even more promising picture with every breath.

Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD). “Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management and Prevention of COPD, 2015.” Goldcopd.com. http://www.goldcopd.org/uploads/users/files/GOLD_Report_2015_Sept2.pdf (accessed November 9, 2015)

McKenzie DK et al. The COPDX Plan: Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for the management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease 2003. Med J Aust. 2003;178 (6):S15-29.

Brill SE and Wedzicha JA. Oxygen therapy in acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2014;9:1241–1252

Jencks SF et al. Rehospitalizations among patients in the Medicare fee-for-service program. New Engl J Med. 2009;360(14):1418-28.

Garcia-Aymerich J et al. Risk factors of re-admission to hospital for a COPD exacerbation: A prospective study.Thorax.2003;58:100–5.

Ram F et al. Non-invasive positive pressure ventilation for treatment of respiratory failure due to exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2004;CD004104.

Koehnlein T et al. Non-invasive positive pressure ventilation for the treatment of severe stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – A prospective, multicentre, randomized, controlled clinical trial. Lancet Respir Med. 2014;2:698-705.

Galli JA et al. Home non-invasive ventilation use following acute hypercapnic respiratory failure in COPD, Respir Med. 2014;108(5):722-8

Tsai CL. Comparative effectiveness of noninvasive ventilation vs invasive mechanical ventilation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients with acute respiratory failure. J Hosp Med. 2013 Apr;8(4):165-72.

Duiverman ML et al. Two year home-based nocturnal noninvasive ventilation added to rehabilitation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Respir Res. 2011;12(1):112.

Cheung AP et al. A pilot trial of non-invasive home ventilation after acidotic respiratory failure in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Int J Tuberc Lung Dis. 2010;14(5):642-9.

* World Health Organization. “Chronic respiratory diseases: Burden of COPD” Who.int. http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/en/ (accessed November 9, 2015)