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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter April 18, 2015

Comparative study of the efficacy and safety of theophylline and doxofylline in patients with bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

  • Dushyant Lal EMAIL logo , Sachin Manocha , Arunabha Ray , V.K. Vijayan and Raj Kumar

Abstract

Background: Bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are the major obstructive disorders that may contribute to the severity in individual patients. The present study was designed to compare the efficacy and safety of theophylline and doxofylline in patients with bronchial asthma and COPD.

Methods: A total of 60 patients, 30 each with bronchial asthma and COPD, were enrolled for the study. Each group of 30 patients received standard treatment for asthma and COPD. Each group was again subdivided into two with 15 patients each, who received theophylline or doxofylline in addition to standard therapy, for a period of 2 months. Each patient was followed up fortnightly for the assessment of efficacy parameters using a pulmonary function test (PFT), clinical symptoms and emergency drug use, and safety was assessed by recording adverse drug reactions.

Results: Both theophylline and doxofylline produced enhancements in PFT at different time intervals in both asthma and COPD patients. The maximum beneficial effects were seen at 6 weeks for asthma patients and at 8 weeks for COPD patients for both theophylline and doxofylline.

Conclusions: The comparative study showed that doxofylline was more effective as evidenced by improvement in PFT as well as clinical symptoms, and reduced incidence of adverse effects and emergency bronchodilator use.


Corresponding author: Dr. Dushyant Lal, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, ESIC Dental College and Hospital, Rohini, New Delhi 110089, India, E-mail:

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Received: 2015-1-21
Accepted: 2015-3-9
Published Online: 2015-4-18
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

©2015 by De Gruyter

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