Injection to thin blood can also help you breathe more easily
other treatments, according to Janis Shute, a professor of respiratory pharmacology, who led the new study at the University of Portsmouth.
For example, a laboratory study found that heparin has mucusthinning properties, making it potentially useful for helping clear a patient’s airways.
To test this, the Portsmouth scientists reformulated heparin into fine particles that could be inhaled as an aerosol, and put these particles into a device connected to a mask which contained a propellant gas that would force it into the lungs.
In a pilot study involving 40 COPD patients, inhaled heparin was found to boost lung function by at least 10 per cent within days of treatment starting, and this made it significantly easier for patients to breathe in more air, according to a report in the European Respiratory Journal.
The patients had the treatment tw twice a day for three weeks, with ea each session lasting 15 minutes. Pr Professor Shute said: ‘ Heparin th thins mucus in the airways, which al allows patients to clear their ai airways more easily, but it also ac acts as an anti-inflammatory.’
I It’s not clear yet whether COPD pa patients will need to inhale the dr drug every day, or just when sy symptoms are particularly bad.
T The researchers are now pl planning a trial to see if heparin in inhaled daily can benefit patients w with cystic fibrosis, the genetic disorder that causes lungs to become seriously congested with mucus.
‘ Nothing we have at the moment does anything to the mucus levels, and it’s a huge problem,’ says Jorgen Vestbo, a professor of respiratory medicine at University Hospital South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust.
MEANwHIlE patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a type of inflammatory arthritis, are at increased risk of COPD, reports the European Journal of Internal Medicine.
Analysis of health records found that 46 per cent of AS patients also had COPD, whereas only 11 per cent of the general population had the lung complaint.
why is unclear, but the researchers said it highlights the importance of smoking cessation in AS patients.