title: Toward a consensus definition for COPD exacerbations.
abstract: In patients with COPD, an acute worsening of respiratory symptoms is often described as an exacerbation. Exacerbations are associated with a significant increase in mortality, hospitalization, and health-care utilization, but there is currently no widely accepted definition of what constitutes an exacerbation of COPD. This paper summarizes the discussions of the workshop, "COPD: Working Towards a Greater Understanding," in which the participants proposed the following working definition of an exacerbation of COPD: a sustained worsening of the patient's condition, from the stable state and beyond normal day-to-day variations, that is acute in onset and necessitates a change in regular medication in a patient with underlying COPD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. roisin@medicina.ub.es
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rodriguez-Roisin
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D008173:Lung Diseases, Obstructive / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D012008:Recurrence; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D009626:Terminology as Topic