Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease: the GOLD science committee report 2019.

Precision medicine is a patient-specific approach that integrates all relevant clinical, genetic and biological information in order to optimise the therapeutic benefit relative to the possibility of side-effects for each individual. Recent clinical trials have shown that higher blood eosinophil counts are associated with a greater efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Blood eosinophil counts are a biomarker with potential to be used in clinical practice, to help target ICS treatment with more precision in COPD patients with a history of exacerbations despite appropriate bronchodilator treatment.

SNP rs3088308 is a risk factor for poor lung function in healthy smokers.

Objective: To see if single nucleotide polymorphisms of pulmonary innate immune molecule surfactant protein D were associated with poor lung function in smokers.

Methods: The study was conducted at Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, from April 2008 to August 2010, and comprised relatives and attendants of patients, as well as college and university students. Self-reported healthy smokers who demonstrated no airflow obstruction on spirometry were included.

Sex differences in severe pulmonary emphysema.

Rationale: Limited data on sex differences in advanced COPD are available.

Objectives: To compare male and female emphysema patients with severe disease.

Methods: One thousand fifty-three patients (38.

Cost-effectiveness of inhaled corticosteroids for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease according to disease severity.

Purpose: Inhaled corticosteroids reduce exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but their cost-effectiveness is not known.

Methods: We used a Markov model to determine, from a societal perspective, the cost-effectiveness of four treatment strategies involving inhaled corticosteroids: no use regardless of COPD severity; use in all disease stages; use in patients with stage 2 or 3 disease (forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV(1)] <50% of predicted); and use in patients with stage 3 disease (FEV(1) <35% of predicted). Data from the literature were used to estimate mortality, exacerbation, and disease progression rates, as well as the costs associated with care and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), according to disease stage and use or nonuse of inhaled corticosteroids.