Chronic diseases represent a huge proportion of human illness. They include cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes.

The main objectives of this Research Seminar are to discuss the:

• burden of complex chronic co-morbidities and
• relationship between markers of organ and systemic inflammation

The main educational aims are to:

• define the most important and frequent co-morbidities in elderly patients, particularly those with COPD
• provide updated information on the most common chronic disease, ie coronary and/or peripheral arterial diseases, systemic arterial hypertension, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, chronic heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• emphasise the limitations of single disease-oriented clinical practice guidelines, and the need for a more comprehensive "internistic" approach to patients with multiple chronic co-morbidities
• suggest that chronic inflammation might represent the common pathogenetic link between the different chronic diseases present in the elderly