Glucocorticoids for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

To the Editor: Niewoehner et al. (June 24 issue) 1 reported the effects of systemic glucocorticoids on exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). They designed their study to evaluate clinical outcomes and found that patients treated with systemic glucocorticoids had a shorter initial hospital stay (8.5 days) than patients who received placebo (9.7 days). They also found, however, that the glucocorticoid-treated patients spent more time in the hospital for reasons other than COPD during the six-month period after their initial hospitalization. With the initial hospital stay added to subsequent stays, the patients in the glucocorticoid group spent about two more . . .