Breaking Barriers: Prospective Study of a Cohort of Advanced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Patients To Describe Their Survival and End-of-Life Palliative Care Requirements.

Background And Aim: Consensus has been reached on the need to integrate palliative care in the follow-up examinations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. We analyzed the survival from the initiation of follow-up by a palliative home care team (PHCT) and described the needs and end-of-life process.

Setting And Design: This study was a prospective observational cohort study of advanced COPD patients referred to a PHCT.

HOLD study (Home care Obstructive Lung Disease): natural history of patients with advanced COPD.

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth cause of death in western countries. Its final stage has clearly been forgotten by medical research in recent years. There exists consensus regarding the need to integrate palliative care in assisting these patients, but the difficulty in establishing a prognosis for the disease, establishing limits for life support measures, the lack of information about the disease's natural course and ignorance as to the most effective health-care structure for these patients' palliative treatment may be responsible for their late inclusion or non-inclusion in specific programmes.