Pneumonia is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. The Agency for Science, Technology and Research reported, a dry powder inhaler formulation offers very good protection against pneumonia-causing bacteria. This is significant because in spite of advances in vaccination and antimicrobial therapy pneumonia still hits many people and is a serious illness.
Desmond Heng, Reginald Tan and co-workers at Agency for Science, Technology and Research have developed a dry powder inhalation formulation for the treatment of bacterial infections which are associated with community-acquired pneumonia. Community-acquired pneumonia is a type of lung inflammation which is contracted outside of a hospital or nursing-home setting. This type of pneumonia is most often caused by infections with various bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
The formulation which has been developed by the team contains two important ingredients. ciprofloxacin hydrochloride (CIP) and beclomethasone dipropionate (BP). Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride is an antibiotic which is commonly used to eliminate pathogenic bacteria. Beclomethasone dipropionate is a corticosteroid which is commonly used to inhibit inflammatory responses.
Heng says the CIP–BP dry powder demonstrates superior aerosol performance and excellent antimicrobial activities. Heng and his associates discovered that it is feasible to package the CIP–BP dry powder in an inhaler which can treat bacterial infections which are associated with community-acquired pneumonia. With dry powder inhalers there is improved formulation stability, improved delivery efficiency, great portability and ease of use.
This study has been published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Because the severity of community-acquired pneumonia has been associated with the extent of inflammation in the body, adjunctive therapeutic measures directed at modulating the immune response have become increasingly attractive. However, there has not been a combined steroid–antibiotic dry powder formulation available commercially. This study offers promise that the delivery of CIP and BP via dry powder inhalers has the potential to become a novel and useful strategy for the treatment of patients with community-acquired pneumonia.
