In recent years, thousands of publications on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and its related biology have entered the world literature, reflecting the increasing scientific and medical interest in this devastating condition. This article is a selective review of several important emerging themes that offer the hope of creating new classes of COPD medicines. Whereas basic science i...

The new Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease update has moved the principles of treatment of stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) forward by including the concepts of symptoms and risks into the decision of therapy. However, no mention of the concept of clinical phenotypes is included. It is recognised that COPD is a very heterogeneous disease and not all patien...

Asthma and COPD are the most frequent chronic respiratory diseases. Although they have different characteristics, some individuals share features of both diseases, which has been called the asthma-COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS). Although there is not a universally accepted definition for ACOS, it was initially defined as symptoms of increased variability of airflow in association with an incomple...

The choice of inhaler device for bronchodilator reversibility is crucial since suboptimal inhalation technique may influence the result. On the other hand, bronchodilator response also varies from time to time and may depend on patient characteristics. In this study, patients with airway obstruction (forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1]/forced vital capacity [FVC] ratio <70% in chronic o...

OBJECTIVE To assess the value of fraction of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) measurements in the diagnosis of asthma in elderly patients. METHODS The clinical symptoms of 202 elderly patients were assessed with the asthma module of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood test, which had been modified for the elderly patients, and the diagnostic routine for chronic obstructive...