New research may give doctors more tools to treat COPD, keep it from getting worse, or prevent it in people who are at risk, like smokers, says Albert Rizzo, MD, chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, DE. In addition to inhaled medicines that help open inflamed lung airways so you can breathe better, a new class of drugs called phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitors helps lower the numbers of severe flares, Rizzo says.
