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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease (COPD) is one of the leading cause of death worldwide and represents one
of the major causes of chronic morbidity. Cigarette smoking is the most important
risk factor for COPD. In these patients, the airflow limitation is caused by a mixture
of small airways disease and parenchyma destruction, the relative contribution of
which varies from person to person. The two-fold nature of this
pathologic condition has been studied in the past and according to many authors
each patient with COPD, although being the individual clinical expression of a wide
and continuous spectrum of pathologic changes (different lesions may coexist) causing
expiratory airflow limitation, should be classified as presenting a predominantly
bronchial or emphysematous COPD phenotype by simple clinical, functional,
and radiological findings.
A model to identify COPD phenotype.
Our research group has recently developed and validated a multivariate model
reflecting the specific predominant mechanism of airflow limitation for a given
patient. The model was trained over a database of hundreds of patients and detailed
explanation could be found in: "Pistolesi M, Camiciottoli G, Paoletti M et al. Identification
of a predominant COPD phenotype in clinical practice. Respiratory Medicine 2008;102:367-376."
Please follow the link below to access the free on-line application
implementing the model.
COPD phenotype
estimation model
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