Safety monitoring
Patients were asked to complete a weekly diary card during
the study period to record medical events, such as COPD
exacerbations, hospitalizations, cardiovascular events, or
any other relevant event. Serious adverse events were
defined as death or hospitalizations for any cause and were
tracked throughout the study during the standardized
telephone interviews. The investigators and the study
steering committee reviewed all serious adverse events to
determine whether they were related to the study intervention.