RATIONALE: Asthma control and global warming are important issues that have significant impacts on human health and the environment. It is critical however to ensure that maintaining or improving the patient?s asthma control goes hand in hand with environmental actions. This lab study investigated how to optimize the modelled lung delivery while at the same time minimizing the carbon emissions from the MDI.
METHODS: Two different salbutamol MDIs (Ventolin, Teva-salbutamol) were investigated and tested alone and combined with an AeroChamber2go* Spacer, designed specifically for on the go use with reliever medications. Fine particle mass (FPM, < 4.7µm), the mass of drug in the size range potentially available for lung delivery was determined using a cascade impactor, performed with no delay following actuation, and HPLC assay. Drug delivery was equated to a potential relative carbon footprint based upon published claims [1].
RESULTS: The FPM data and potential carbon emissions values are shown below.
| Ventolin | Ventolin/Spacer | Teva-salbutamol alone | Teva-Salbutamol / Spacer | |
| FPM (µg/actuation) | 26.5±1.5 | 34.9±5.3 | 41.3±4.2 | 49.8±4.0 |
| MDI Carbon emissions per actuation (Kg CO2) | 0.141 | 0.141 | 0.059 | 0.059 |
CONCLUSIONS: The use of this spacer with a lower carbon emitting salbutamol MDI has the potential to improve lung delivery and reduce carbon emissions. The selection of the Teva-salbutamol MDI delivered using the AeroChamber2go* Spacer could potentially reduce the number of actuations required for patient relief of symptoms, which could help contribute to an up to 4.5x reduction in the carbon emissions compared to using a Ventolin MDI product alone.
[1] https://greeninhaler.org/