Material from 2008:
- 3952 Abstracts
- 658 Slide presentations
- 316 Webcasts
- 96 Handouts
- 1824 e-posters
- 316 Multimedia files
Material from 2008:
Show
- 3952 Abstracts
- 658 Slide presentations
- 316 Webcasts
- 96 Handouts
- 1824 e-posters
- 316 Multimedia files
PG17 - An expert view of the differences between asthma and COPD
Postgraduate CourseChairs: A. Rossi (Bergamo, Italy), J. C. Virchow (Rostock, Germany)
Aims: The purpose of this course is to provide an expert view on some major unresolved issues in asthma and COPD. We need to evaluate new diagnostic tools for asthma and COPD; to target older people in epidemiological studies to identify and describe the extent of asthma; to define the clinical and physiological features of asthma and COPD in older people that indicate when and which treatments will achieve maximum benefit with least harm; to develop strategies for better, patient-focused care of people with severe airway disease, concentrating on device use, action plans, side effects, end-of-life decisions, exercise and independence in activities of daily living; and to maintain research into new drugs and targets for preventing progressive loss of lung function in asthma and COPD.
The main learning objectives of the course are:
-to consider the essential differences in the inflammatory process that lead to different pathological outcomes in asthma and COPD;
-to discuss what factors cause some patients with asthma to have clinical features indistinguishable from COPD, and whether these patients should be treated differently from those with early-onset, atopic asthma;
-to inform whether the response to bronchodilators in asthma and COPD predicts prognosis and response to other interventions;
-to know whether people with asthma (airway obstruction, hyperresponsiveness and atopy) and COPD (fixed airflow limitation) have different natural histories, responses to treatment and prognoses.