Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity, mortality and resource use worldwide. The goal of this official American Thoracic Society (ATS)/European Respiratory Society (ERS) Research Statement is to describe evidence related to diagnosis, assessment, and management; identify gaps in knowledge; and make recommendations for future research. It is not intended to provide clinical practice recommendations on COPD diagnosis and management.
Clinicians, researchers and patient advocates with expertise in COPD were invited to participate. A literature search of Medline was performed, and studies deemed relevant were selected. The search was not a systematic review of the evidence. Existing evidence was appraised and summarised, and then salient knowledge gaps were identified.
Recommendations for research that addresses important gaps in the evidence in all areas of COPD were formulated via discussion and consensus.
Great strides have been made in the diagnosis, assessment and management of COPD, as well as understanding its pathogenesis. Despite this, many important questions remain unanswered. This ATS/ERS research statement highlights the types of research that leading clinicians, researchers and patient advocates believe will have the greatest impact on patient-centred outcomes.
Abstract
ATS/ERS statement highlighting research areas that will have the greatest impact on patient-centred outcomes in COPD http://ow.ly/LXW2J
Footnotes
↵1 Project co-chairs; should be considered co-first authors
-
Conflict of interest: Disclosures can be found alongside the online version of this article at err.ersjournals.com
The official statement of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) was approved by the ATS Board of Directors, November 25, 2014, and by the ERS Science Council and Executive Committee, November 5 and November 27, 2014, respectively.
This Executive Summary is also published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2015; 191: 831–844; the full statement is published in the European Respiratory Journal 2015; 45: 879–905 and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2015; 191: e4–e27.
Provenance: Submitted article, peer reviewed.
- Received January 9, 2015.
- Accepted January 24, 2015.
- Copyright ©ATS/ERS 2015.
ERR articles are open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.