The European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) has launched a review of the risk for pneumonia with inhaled corticosteroid-containing medicines used to treat COPD.

“The risk of pneumonia with these medicines is known and was first identified in 2007 when a study showed that patients treated with an inhaled corticosteroid, fluticasone, were at higher risk of developing pneumonia than those given placebo,” the EMA notes in a statement.