Macrolide Maintenance Therapy in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

To assess whether maintenance treatment with macrolide antibiotics in COPD patients with three or more exacerbations in the preceding year of inclusion can decrease the exacerbation rate in the year of treatment.

COPD is characterized by progressive development of airflow limitation that is poorly reversible. Because of a poor understanding of COPD pathogenesis, treatment is mostly symptomatic and new therapeutic strategies are limited. There is a direct relationship between the severity of the disease and the intensity of the inflammatory response.One of the hypothesis for persistent airway inflammation is that the presence of recurrent infections is responsible for this condition. Macrolide antibiotics have a bacteriostatic as well as anti-inflammatory properties. This clinical trial will investigate whether maintenance treatment with macrolide antibiotics during 1 year in people with 3 or more exacerbations in the preceding year of inclusion can decrease the exacerbation rate in that same year of treatment.