Chronic Obstructive Airways Diseases: Where Are We Now?

These diseases, especially asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cause considerable morbidity and mortality and consume substantial and increasing health care resources, this have become important global public health problem in the last decades. There is evidence that asthma affects 1-18% of the population in different countries [1]. In addition, COPD is one of the most important causes of death in most countries, i.e. it is estimated that COPD will become the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2020 [2].