Validation of clinical control in COPD as a new tool for optimizing treatment.

Background: It has recently been proposed that the concept of clinical control in COPD may be useful for deciding treatment in COPD, but the original control criteria (OCC) were considered too restrictive.

Objective: Define and subsequently validate "modified" control criteria (MCC) of COPD.

Method: Prospective observational study in COPD patients with a 1-year follow-up.

Skeletal muscle apoptosis and weight loss in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often lose weight during the course of their disease. We hypothesized that this may be due to skeletal muscle apoptosis. To investigate this possibility, we obtained quadriceps femoris biopsies in 15 patients with COPD (8 with normal body mass index [BMI] and 7 with low [< 20 kg/m(2)] BMI), 8 healthy volunteers, and 6 sedentary subjects undergoing orthopedic surgery (both groups with normal BMI).