Advances in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by poorly reversible, chronic airflow obstruction, from the clinical point of view we must continue to make progress in the diagnosis and management of these patients so that spirometry is not the only technique used. Understanding that COPD is a heterogeneous process and that patient complexity usually increases due to the presence of comorbidities will allow more individualized strategies to be designed, which may improve control of the process. The TORCH and UPLIFT trials have shown that current treatment can improve important aspects of the disease, including mortality. However, the finalizing of these two large trials has generated a current of opinion favoring a more individually-tailored approach that should include all the factors -both pulmonary and extrapulmonary- that can modify the patient's form of presentation. Although we are witnessing a change in the therapeutic approach to COPD, future treatment will probably be based on studies performed in specific patient subgroups and on clarifying the interrelation between COPD and other diseases that are common in these patients. Greater knowledge of the pathogenesis of the disease may improve pharmacological treatment but drugs that, by themselves, alter the short- and longterm course of COPD are not on the horizon. However, a more patient-focussed approach may be the main tool available to physicians to increase quality of life -and possibly survival- in these patients.