Inhaler technology: new concepts for the millennium.
Drugs for treating airway diseases, especially asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, are best given in a form that can be inhaled. Inhalation can reduce adverse effects by allowing a lower dose, decreasing response time, and providing topical effects that systemic delivery cannot provide. Recent advances include ways to measure doses more accurately and distribute them more precisely to sites in the lungs; new combinations of drugs for inhalation; devices that, to encourage compliance, are easier and more convenient to use; better ways to deliver doses to small children; and the use of inhalation to administer systemic drugs, such as insulin, that were formerly given by injection.
Woolcock
A J
AJ
The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. annjw@mail.usyd.edu.au
D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones / Q000008:administration & dosage; D000335:Aerosol Propellants / Q000008:administration & dosage; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D036503:Inhalation Spacers; D009330:Nebulizers and Vaporizers; D010316:Particle Size; D011208:Powders; D011650:Pulmonary Alveoli; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*
D000305:Adrenal Cortex Hormones; D000335:Aerosol Propellants; D018927:Anti-Asthmatic Agents; D011208:Powders