Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Research

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a progressive lung condition characterized by persistent airflow obstruction, typically driven by long-term exposure to tobacco smoke or air pollution, and diagnosed through spirometry measurements of how much air a person can forcefully exhale. It ranks among the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, yet remains underdiagnosed because breathlessness is often dismissed as a normal consequence of aging or smoking. Researchers are actively working to understand why some patients experience frequent acute exacerbations—sudden worsening episodes that accelerate lung function decline and drive most of the disease's mortality—while others with similar obstruction do not. A central open question is how systemic inflammation and comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease interact with lung pathology, and whether targeting these shared mechanisms could reshape treatment beyond bronchodilation.

Works

173,515

Total citations

2,327,034

Keywords

COPDspirometrylung functionpulmonary diseaseglobal burdenrespiratory