Research Advances in COPD Drugs and Novel Targets

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third-most deadly disease in the world and will be a major healthcare problem for decades to come. Its etiology is mainly related to the exposure to cigarette smoke and poisonous gases, and the infections of viruses including COVID-19 induce acute exacerbation of COPD, which may cause death in patients. Few advances have been made in COPD pathological mechanism, and the current clinical treatment strategies focus on both bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory interventions;but with limited clinical therapeutic agents, COPD therapies still lack more drugs especially those that antagonize COPD-specific inflammatory responses. We review the COPD clinically applied drugs, and the progress of research on new drugs and related novel targets, including β 2 agonists and anti-muscarinic drugs for airway diastole, glucocorticoids and phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitors for anti-inflammatory, protease inhibitors, emerging antioxidants, adhesion factor inhibitors, growth factor antagonists, adenylate cyclase agonists, chemokine antagonists, etc. We thus provide insights on the COPD new drugs research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Nano Life is the property of World Scientific Publishing Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)