Mahler D A
Chest. 1987 Jul;92(1 Suppl):2S-6S. doi: 10.1378/chest.92.1_supplement.2s.
Dyspnea is influenced by both physiologic and psychologic factors. Breathlessness is common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and often is the reason that the individual patient seeks medical attention. In order to evaluate the different clinical studies involving the use of theophylline in COPD patients, it is important to consider the three distinct approaches for measuring dyspnea--psychophysical testing, clinical methods, and ratings during exercise. Four randomized, double-blind, placebo-theophylline trials from one to four weeks in duration have evaluated the impact of theophylline on lung function and breathlessness. In these studies, the overall improvement in forced expiratory volume in one second was quite consistent for theophylline compared with placebo therapy. When appropriate clinical methods for measuring dyspnea were used, theophylline showed a positive reduction in breathlessness. These reports suggest that theophylline provides modest objective and subjective improvement in patients with symptomatic chronic air flow obstruction.
呼吸困难受生理和心理因素的影响。呼吸急促在慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）患者中很常见，且常常是个体患者寻求医疗护理的原因。为了评估涉及在COPD患者中使用茶碱的不同临床研究，重要的是考虑测量呼吸困难的三种不同方法——心理物理学测试、临床方法和运动期间的评分。四项为期一至四周的随机、双盲、安慰剂-茶碱试验评估了茶碱对肺功能和呼吸急促的影响。在这些研究中，与安慰剂治疗相比，茶碱在一秒用力呼气量方面的总体改善相当一致。当使用适当的测量呼吸困难的临床方法时，茶碱显示出呼吸急促有积极的减轻。这些报告表明，茶碱能使有症状的慢性气流阻塞患者在客观和主观方面有适度改善。
