[More than expectorant: new scientific data on ambroxol in the context of the treatment of bronchopulmonary diseases].

BACKGROUND: Ambroxol has been established for decades in the treatment of acute and chronic respiratory diseases. In 2015, the European Medicines Agency reassessed the clinical benefit-risk ratio of the drug.

OBJECTIVE: What new scientific data on ambroxol, which are relevant to the treatment of bronchopulmonary diseases, are available?

METHOD: The review is based on a systematic literature research in medline with the search term "ambroxol" during the publication period 2006-2015. Non-relevant publications were excluded manually.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Ambroxol is still intensively researched. The traditional indication as an expectorant is confirmed. But there is also an ever better understanding of the various mechanisms of action as well as the ever more exact modeling of the structures under investigation. New fields of application are conceivable, e. g. in patients with severe pulmonary disease who undergo surgery or who are in intensive care, as an adjuvant in anti-infective therapies, especially in infections with biofilm-producing pathogens, or in rare diseases such as lysosomal storage diseases. However, final evidence of the clinical relevance in these fields of application is still missing.