INHALATION DELIVERY SYSTEMS WITH COMPLIANCE AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES

Non-compliance with prescribed medication is a major reason for poor t herapeutic outcomes, leading to unnecessary contributions to healthcar e costs. Poor technique in self-administration of inhalation therapy i s a special type of non-compliance associated with this route of admin istration. However, pulmonary drug delivery has fundamental advantages for therapy of diseases of the respiratory tract because it is site-d irected. The lung is also a promising portal for drug delivery into th e systemic circulation. Incorporation of microprocessors into pulmonar y drug delivery systems facilitates sophisticated compliance managemen t of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes. Microprocessor-assi sted systems afford control of patients' administration technique duri ng the therapeutic inhalation event, thus leading to efficient and rep roducible regional deposition of the inhaled drug or diagnostic agent. SmartMist(TM) is a hand-held asthma disease management device that ai ds patients to use optimally metered dose inhalers. It also measures p ulmonary lung function and provides a long term downloadable electroni c record of the therapeutic and diagnostic events. The AERx(TM) pulmon ary delivery system utilizes similar microprocessor capabilities; howe ver, it employs a novel means of generating aqueous aerosols from unit dose packages, thus providing a broad inhalation technology base for delivery of a wide variety of therapeutic and diagnostic agents into t he respiratory tract, and via the lung into the systemic circulation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.