Symbicort in Airway Predominant Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

The main objective of the study is to see if using anti-inflammatory to patients with airway disease chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) phenotype will be more effective than using these treatments in patients with loss of lung tissue. Symbicort plus ipratropium/albuterol will be used for 12 weeks in an open-label study in subjects with airway predominant COPD.

Subjects from the COPDGene study who have airway-predominant COPD on chest CT scan will be enrolled; a total of 40 subjects is planned. Subjects will all have background ipratropium-albuterol administered four times daily. Subjects will be randomized to receive budesonide (180 ug twice daily) or formoterol-budesonide (160/4.5 ug twice daily) for 12 weeks. The main objective is to explore novel outcomes: blood biomarkers and chest CT scan. Outcomes include lung function, walk distance, respiratory disease-specific health status, and expiratory chest CT scan gas trapping as an exploratory outcome. The primary outcome measure will be FEV1 pre-bronchodilator 12 hours after the last dose of study medication at the end of 12 weeks of treatment. FEV1 will be measured in the morning 6 hours after the last dose of ipratropium/albuterol and 12 hours after the last dose of budesonide and budesonide/formoterol