EDITORIALS
What evidence could validate the definition of COPD?
Correspondence to:
Professor R de Marco, Unit of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Department of Medicine and Public Health, Strada le Grazie 8, 37134 Verona, Italy; roberto.demarco@univr.it
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of disability and death in both the developed and developing worlds,1–3 and it is largely underdiagnosed.4
While it is generally accepted that the ratio between forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) or slow vital capacity (SVC) is the most important measure that characterises airflow obstruction,5 6 there is still no consensus on what the best definition of COPD should be.
In an attempt to simplify the diagnosis of COPD, improve the detection of the disease in primary care and standardise methods to measure the prevalence of COPD in different countries, the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) has defined COPD as a post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC ratio <0.70.5
As the FEV1/FVC ratio decreases with age, this fixed ratio has been criticised as it may overdiagnose the disease in elderly subjects7 and
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