State of the art review: management of bronchiectasis in adults

Formerly regarded as a rare disease, bronchiectasis is now increasingly recognised and a renewed interest in the condition is stimulating drug development and clinical research. Bronchiectasis represents the final common pathway of a number of infectious, genetic, autoimmune, developmental and allergic disorders and is highly heterogeneous in its aetiology, impact and prognosis. The goals of therapy should be: to improve airway mucus clearance through physiotherapy with or without adjunctive therapies; to suppress, eradicate and prevent airway bacterial colonisation; to reduce airway inflammation; and to improve physical functioning and quality of life. Fortunately, an increasing body of evidence supports interventions in bronchiectasis. The field has benefited greatly from the introduction of evidence-based guidelines in some European countries and randomised controlled trials have now demonstrated the benefit of long-term macrolide therapy, with accumulating evidence for inhaled therapies, physiotherapy and pulmonary rehabilitation. This review provides a critical update on the management of bronchiectasis focussing on emerging evidence and recent randomised controlled trials. @ERSpublications Bronchiectasis is a rapidly developing field: review of recent RCTs and progress towards developing new therapies http://ow.ly/JXGWM Copyright ©ERS 2015 Received: June 29 2014 | Accepted after revision: Jan 06 2015 Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside the online version of this article at erj.ersjournals.com Eur Respir J 2015; in press | DOI: 10.1183/09031936.00119114 1 STATE OF THE ART IN PRESS | CORRECTED PROOF . Published on March 18, 2015 as doi: 10.1183/09031936.00119114 ERJ Express Copyright 2015 by the European Respiratory Society.