This Executive Summary of the Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD, Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) 2017 report focuses primarily on the revised and novel parts of the document. The most significant changes include: (1) the assessment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has been refined to separate the spirometric assessment from symptom evaluation. ABCD groups are now proposed to be derived exclusively from patient symptoms and their history of exacerbations; (2) for each of the groups A to D, escalation strategies for pharmacologic treatments are proposed; (3) the concept of deescalation of therapy is introduced in the treatment assessment scheme; (4) nonpharmacologic therapies are comprehensively presented; and (5) the importance of comorbid conditions in managing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is reviewed.

/pdf/global-strategy-for-the-diagnosis-management-and-prevention-2tve0rxywh.pdf

Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease 2017 Report. GOLD Executive Summary

Background— Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after electrocardioversion. OSA is highly prevalent in patients who are male, obese, and/or hypertens...

Association of Atrial Fibrillation and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

This Executive Summary of the Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD (GOLD) 2017 Report focuses primarily on the revised and novel parts of the document. The most significant changes include: 1) the assessment of COPD has been refined to separate the spirometric assessment from symptom evaluation. ABCD groups are now proposed to be derived exclusively from patient symptoms and their history of exacerbations; 2) for each of the groups A to D, escalation strategies for pharmacological treatments are proposed; 3) the concept of de-escalation of therapy is introduced in the treatment assessment scheme; 4) nonpharmacologic therapies are comprehensively presented and; 5) the importance of comorbid conditions in managing COPD is reviewed.

/pdf/global-strategy-for-the-diagnosis-management-and-prevention-3ziakcdle4.pdf

Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease 2017 Report: GOLD Executive Summary

This Executive Summary of the Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management and Prevention of COPD, Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) 2017 Report focuses primarily on the revised and novel parts of the document. The most significant changes include: (i) the assessment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has been refined to separate the spirometric assessment from symptom evaluation. ABCD groups are now proposed to be derived exclusively from patient symptoms and their history of exacerbations; (ii) for each of the groups A to D, escalation strategies for pharmacological treatments are proposed; (iii) the concept of de-escalation of therapy is introduced in the treatment assessment scheme; (iv)non-pharmacological therapies are comprehensively presented and (v) the importance of co-morbid conditions in managing COPD is reviewed.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/resp.13012

Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management and Prevention of Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease 2017 Report: GOLD Executive Summary

The assessment of functional capacity reflects the ability to perform activities of daily living that require sustained aerobic metabolism. The integrated efforts and health of the pulmonary, cardiovascular, and skeletal muscle systems dictate an individual’s functional capacity. Numerous investigations have demonstrated that the assessment of functional capacity provides important diagnostic and prognostic information in a wide variety of clinical and research settings. This scientific statement, an update of the previously published American Heart Association (AHA) document,1 highlights the major clinical and research applications of functional capacity assessment. For a comprehensive review of exercise testing, the reader is referred to the American College of Cardiology (ACC)/AHA Guidelines for Exercise Testing.2,3

Functional capacity is the ability of an individual to perform aerobic work as defined by the maximal oxygen uptake (Vo2max), that is, the product of cardiac output and arteriovenous oxygen (a−Vo2) difference at physical exhaustion, as shown in the following equation: ![Formula][1] 

Where HR indicates heart rate and SV indicates stroke volume.

Because Vo2max typically is achieved by exercise that involves only about half of the total body musculature, it is generally believed that Vo2max is limited by maximal cardiac output rather than peripheral factors.4

Although Vo2max is measured in liters of oxygen per minute, it usually is expressed in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute to facilitate intersubject comparisons. In addition, functional capacity, particularly when estimated from the work rate achieved rather than directly measured Vo, is frequently expressed in metabolic equivalents (METs), with 1 MET representing the resting energy expenditure (≈3.5 mL O2 · kg−1 · min−1). In this instance, functional capacity is commonly expressed clinically as a multiple of the resting metabolic rate.

Vo2max …

 [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Assessment of Functional Capacity in Clinical and Research Settings A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association Committee on Exercise, Rehabilitation, and Prevention of the Council on Clinical Cardiology and the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing

Relationship of ventricular ectopy to nocturnal oxygen desaturation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronotropic incompetence has been found to be an important predictor of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). However, few data define the normal heart rate response to progressive exercise and allow a clear definition of chronotropic incompetence. In this study, 312 patients who underwent an exercise stress test and coronary angiography were evaluated. The exercise heart rates of 140 normal subjects were used to define the normal mean heart rate at progressive work loads. Two standard deviations of the mean were chosen to represent a normal response at various levels of exercise. Analysis of the exercise heart rates in 172 patients who had CAD revealed 16 patients who had a peak exercise heart rate below 2 standard deviations of the mean. Of the 16 patients, 5 had 1-vessel, 5 had 2-vessel and 6 had 3-vessel CAD. Of 65 patients who had no significant ST-segment shift and who did not reach 85% of age-predicted heart rate, 13 (20%) had an inappropriately low heart rate for the work load performed. Each of the 13 patients had CAD. Of the 172 patients with CAD, those with chronotropic incompetence exercised further than the patients who did not have chronotropic incompetence (9.4 +/- 2.1 vs 7.0 +/- 3.4 METs, p less than 0.01). In conclusion, chronotropic incompetence is a relatively infrequent occurrence in an exercise test population; however, this finding, when present, is relatively specific for CAD, and may be useful in detecting patients with CAD who have an indeterminate exercise test.

Chronotropic incompetence in clinical exercise testing.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/0002-9343(68)90192-7/pdf

Robert G. Evans

Papers

Relationship of ventricular ectopy to nocturnal oxygen desaturation in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronotropic incompetence in clinical exercise testing.

Providence bacillus bacteremia and septicopyemia.

The prevalence of carboxyhemoglobinemia in New Yorkers and its effects on the coronary and systemic circulation.