American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Jun 2020
Randomized Controlled Trial Observational StudyThe Relationship Between Symptoms, Exacerbations and Treatment Response in Bronchiectasis.
Rationale: Bronchiectasis guidelines regard treatment to prevent exacerbation and treatment of daily symptoms as separate objectives. Objectives: We hypothesized that patients with greater symptoms would be at higher risk of exacerbations and therefore that a treatment aimed at reducing daily symptoms would also reduce exacerbations in highly symptomatic patients. Methods: Our study comprised an observational cohort of 333 patients from the East of Scotland (2012-2016). ⋯ Inhaled mannitol treatment improved the time to first exacerbation (hazard ratio, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.40-0.77; P < 0.001), and the proportion of patients remaining exacerbation free for 12 months of treatment was higher in the mannitol group (32.7% vs. 14.6%; RR, 2.84; 95% CI, 1.40-5.76; P = 0.003), but only in highly symptomatic patients. In contrast, no benefit was evident in patients with lower symptom burden. Conclusions: Highly symptomatic patients have increased risk of exacerbations, and exacerbation benefit with inhaled mannitol was only evident in patients with high symptom burden.