Do Inhaled Corticosteroids Reduce Hospitalizations Among Older Adults With Asthma, COPD?

A study in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society found older adults with asthma or concurrent asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — but not COPD alone — are less likely to go into the hospital for obstructive lung disease if they take an inhaled corticosteroid, reports Pulmonology Consultant . The researchers analyzed data on persons 66 or older from Ontario who satisfied a validated case definition of physician-diagnosed COPD and/or asthma between 2003 and 2014. All participants were administered a new inhaled corticosteroid. Twenty-seven percent of the 87,690 participants with asthma had concurrent COPD, while 25 percent of the 150,593 individuals with COPD had concurrent asthma. Inhaled corticosteroids were tied to fewer hospitalizations for obstructive lung disease in those with asthma alone, and concurrent COPD attenuated this benefit. A similar connection was noted in persons with both COPD and asthma, but not in those with COPD alone. Moreover, subjects with COPD only had a marginally higher risk of hospitalization for pneumonia with their receipt of inhaled corticosteroids — an association not observed in the other cohorts.