Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a common preventable and treatable disease that is characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms and airway limitation due to alveolar abnormalities caused by significant exposure to noxious particles and gases. The main risk factors for COPD are tobacco smoking, indoor air pollution, occupational exposure,outdoor air pollution,genetic factor. COPD is characterized by chronic inflammation of the airways,lung tissue and pulmonary blood vessels as a result of exposure to inhaled irritants such as tobacco smoke. Airway re-modelling in COPD is a direct result of the inflammatory response associated with COPD and leads to narrowing of the airways. Most common respiratory symptoms in COPD include dyspnoea,cough and sputum production. COPD may be punctuated by periods of acute worsening of respiratory symptoms called exacerbations.

COPD is a major cause of chronic morbidity throughout the world.Currently it is the fourth leading cause of death in the world.More than 3 million people died of COPD in 2012 accounting for 6% of all deaths globally. According to WHO 65 million of people have moderate to severe COPD worldwide.

The prevalence estimates of COPD in India have ranged from 2 to 22% in men and 1.2 to 19% in women. There are significant differences in prevalence of COPD in different groups and subpopulation, the cumulative prevalence with the disease onset after 35-40 years of age increases with age. It is distinctly more common amongst men and smokers.This is largely attributed to the indoor air pollution from domestic combustion of solid fuels for cooking and heating to which women are significantly more exposed. This is particularly so in the rural and hilly areas where the solid biomass fuels are primarily used. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke(passive smoking)from male smokers in the house is another important risk factor for COPD in non smoker women.An estimated 25–45% of patients with COPD have never smoked; the burden of non-smoking COPD is therefore much higher than previously believed. About 3 billion people, half the worldwide population, are exposed to smoke from biomass fuel compared with 1·01 billion people who smoke tobacco, which suggests that exposure to biomass smoke might be the biggest risk factor for COPD globally. 

Despite of having enormous works on respiratory diseases like Bronchial Asthma, Bronchitis, etc., surprisingly no sufficient works have been done on COPD. As per survey of researches conducted on past few decade in Ayurvedic field, it is found that there have been no researches done in the past 10 or 20 years that shows effect of inhalation therapy on COPD through selected drugs. Looking into this need, the current study has been planned.