For long there has been the rampant practice of treating or prescribing the patients affected with the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or the COPD with inhaled corticosteroids to keep in check the aggravating condition of the disease. However, according to new study jointly conducted by an eminent group of the McGill University in Canada, it has been unearthed that the application of the anti-inflammatory drugs augment the probability of the hospitalization of these patients being effected by pneumonia.

The investigative study happened under the guidance of Dr. Pierre Ernst, M.D., a clinical epidemiologist at McGill University in conjunction with three other eminent researchers representing the department of medicine of the same university. A detailed analysis of the hospitalization and drug prescription information was pursued from 1988 to 2003 of 175,906 patients with COPD living in Quebec, Canada. It was also found during the same time that 23,942 of the total number of admitted patients were hospitalized for pneumonia. It has come to the knowledge from their report that the rate of admission for pneumonia was steadily perceived with the augmentation of higher doses of inhaled steroids but also a substantial reduction was also noticed but that happened only after once the medications were forcibly stopped. Moreover, the study report revealed that there was the definite evidence of 53 percent increase in pneumonia deaths within 30 days of being admitted to the hospital among all the patients taking inhaled steroids. To all the possible enquiries the investigators clarified of the relevance of these findings stating that the pneumonia had been identified as the third leading cause of hospitalization in the United States of America showing that the utilization of the inhaled corticosteroid had a sharp increase among patients affected COPD from 13.2 to 41.4 percent from 1987 to 1995. On this account the authors stated, "Adverse effects of inhaled corticosteroids in patients with COPD are particularly troublesome given the limited evidence for their efficacy."

While speaking on the basis of their report to the Press & media the researchers clarified, "In a large cohort of patients with COPD, we found that current inhaled corticosteroid use was associated with a significant 70 percent increase in the risk of being hospitalized for pneumonia.   Furthermore, for the severest pneumonias leading to death within 30 days of hospitalization, the risk with current inhaled corticosteroid use was also significantly increased."