Research suggests umeclidinium and glycopyrronium have similar effects in treating COPD

By Dr Deepu

 Research indicates “umeclidinium and glycopyrronium have similar effects in treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).”
This study demonstrated non-inferiority between once-daily UMEC 62.5 µg delivered by the Ellipta DPI and GLYCO 50 µg delivered by the Breezhaler DPI for trough FEV1 at day 85 in the per-protocol population. Clinically important lung-function improvements (trough FEV1 ≥100 mL ) achieved with both UMEC and GLYCO were accompanied by clinically important improvements in other endpoints TDI (≥1 unit), SGRQ (improvement of ≥4 units ) and at the population level for CAT with UMEC only (≥1.6 units [30]). While the MCID for CAT is a change of 2 units in an individual , the threshold is smaller for a population at 1.6 units [30]. Treatment with UMEC improved the population mean CAT score in this study beyond this threshold. Overall, both treatments, therefore, not only improved lung function but also improved symptoms and HRQoL within the study.

There was a difference in time to onset favouring GLYCO versus UMEC (15 versus 30 min, respectively) on day 1; however, the magnitude of the difference is small and the study was not designed to show statistical differences between arms in terms of time to onset. However, the difference in time to onset was small and the magnitude of lung-function improvements on day 1 after the first 30 min was similar between the two treatments. Serial lung-function improvements were similar at all timepoints at other days of testing. A similar transient treatment difference has been reported between GLYCO and TIO in a previous study; however, it was evident only at day 1 of that study. The difference was not maintained with repeat dosing, as there was no difference at week 12 .
The findings were published in ERJ Open Research.
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