EDITORIAL

Systemic inflammation in COPD

Skeletal muscle weakness, reduced exercise tolerance, and COPD: is systemic inflammation the missing link?

D D Sin, S F P Man

James Hogg iCAPTURE Center for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research, St Paul’s Hospital and The Department of Medicine (Division of Respirology), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr D D Sin
James Hogg iCAPTURE Center for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research, St Paul’s Hospital, 1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6, Canada; dsin@mrl.ubc.ca

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Systemic inflammation may be the "missing link" between airway dysfunction and the extrapulmonary manifestations of COPD

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Keywords: systemic inflammation; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; muscle dysfunction

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

There is a growing recognition that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a condition that involves multiple organs and systems.¹ In addition to emphysema and airway inflammation and remodelling, COPD is associated with various local and systemic complications including cachexia, weight loss, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, heart failure, atherosclerosis, dementia, depression, and cancer.^1–3 Strikingly, these extrapulmonary manifestations of COPD account for the vast majority of morbidity and mortality in COPD patients.^4,5 Treatments that modify these complications may improve survival in patients with COPD,^4,6 whereas treatments that exclusively target the airways generally do not.^5,7

One of the important extrapulmonary manifestations of COPD is skeletal muscle dysfunction and wasting.¹ With increasing severity of disease, patients with COPD lose muscle bulk, especially in their thighs and upper arms. Over time, these patients lose exercise endurance and complain of fatigue and dyspnoea with only a minimal degree of exertion.⁸ These symptoms . . . [Full text of this article]

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