RT Book, Section A1 Barnes, Peter J. A2 Brunton, Laurence L. A2 Hilal-Dandan, Randa A2 Knollmann, Björn C. SR Print(0) ID 1162540982 T1 Pulmonary Pharmacology T2 Goodman & Gilman's: The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, 13e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781259584732 LK accessbiomedicalscience.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1162540982 RD 2024/10/03 AB Pulmonary pharmacology concerns understanding how drugs act on the lung and the pharmacological therapy of pulmonary diseases. Much of pulmonary pharmacology is concerned with the effects of drugs on the airways and the therapy of airway obstruction, particularly asthma and COPD, which are among the most common chronic diseases in the world. Both asthma and COPD are characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways, although there are marked differences in inflammatory mechanisms and response to therapy between these diseases (Barnes, 2008b; Postma and Rabe, 2015). This chapter discusses the pharmacotherapy of obstructive airways disease, particularly therapy with bronchodilators, which act mainly by reversing airway smooth muscle contraction, and anti-inflammatory drugs, which suppress the inflammatory response in the airways. This chapter focuses on the pulmonary pharmacology of β2 adrenergic agonists and corticosteroids; the basic pharmacology of these classes of agents is presented elsewhere (Chapters 12 and 46).