[Good clinical practice in nebulization].

A meeting on nebulization held in April 1997 defined good clinical practices. Guidelines that were proposed pertained to the following: pneumatic and ultrasonic nebulizers; delivering circuit, occluded or not, the choice of the tip being done according to the disease to treat and to the drugs to be delivered; various functions, depending on the type of nebulizer; the particle size, as it will indicate which disease may be treated: between 2 and 6 microns for bronchi, between 0.5 et 3 microns for lung, > 5 microns for ear, nose and throat diseases; compatibility between the type of nebulizer and drugs. Ten drugs are currently registered in France. Nebulization has multiple clinical indications, such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, acute laryngitis, and in infants, acute bronchiolitis. The prescription must be detailed, and the physician should make sure that the medical staff put it into application.