Efficacy and safety of once-daily aclidinium in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

BACKGROUND: The long-term efficacy and safety of aclidinium bromide, a novel, long-acting muscarinic antagonist, were investigated in patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS: In two double-blind, 52-week studies, ACCLAIM/COPD I (n=843) and II (n=804), patients were randomised to inhaled aclidinium 200 μg or placebo once-daily. Patients were required to have a post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1)/forced vital capacity ratio of ≤70% and FEV1<80% of the predicted value. The primary endpoint was trough FEV1 at 12 and 28 weeks. Secondary endpoints were health status measured by St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) and time to first moderate or severe COPD exacerbation. RESULTS: At 12 and 28 weeks, aclidinium improved trough FEV1 versus placebo in ACCLAIM/COPD I (by 61 and 67 mL; both p<0.001) and ACCLAIM/COPD II (by 63 and 59 mL; both p<0.001). More patients had a SGRQ improvement≥4 units at 52 weeks with aclidinium versus placebo in ACCLAIM/COPD I (48.1% versus 39.5%; p=0.025) and ACCLAIM/COPD II (39.0% versus 32.8%; p=0.074). The time to first exacerbation was significantly delayed by aclidinium in ACCLAIM/COPD II (hazard ratio [HR] 0.7; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55 to 0.92; p=0.01), but not ACCLAIM/COPD I (HR 1.0; 95% CI 0.72 to 1.33; p=0.9). Adverse events were minor in both studies. CONCLUSION: Aclidinium is effective and well tolerated in patients with moderate to severe COPD

Characterization of Sparkling Wine Based on Polyphenolic Profiling by Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry

Polyphenols are phytochemicals naturally present in wines that arouse much interest in the scientific community due to their healthy properties. In addition, their role as descriptors of various wine qualities, such as the geographical origin or the grape variety, cannot be underestimated. Here, Pinot Noir and Xarel center dot lo monovarietal samples belonging to the sparkling wine production process have been studied, corresponding to base wines from a first alcoholic fermentation (plus malolactic in some cases), base wines resulting from tartaric stabilization, and sparkling wines from a second alcoholic fermentation aged for 3 and 7 months. One of the objectives of this paper is to obtain valuable chemical and oenological information by processing a huge amount of data with suitable chemometric methods. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with ultraviolet spectroscopy and tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-UV-MS/MS) has been used for the determination of polyphenols in wines and related samples. The method relies on reversed-phase mode and further detection by multiple reaction monitoring. Concentrations of relevant phenolic compounds have been determined, and the resulting compositional data have been used for characterization purposes. Exploratory studies by principal component analysis have shown that samples can be discriminated according to varietal and quality issues. Further classification models have been established to assign unknown samples to their corresponding classes. For this purpose, a sequential classification tree has been designed involving both variety and quality classes, and an excellent classification rate has been achieved