[COPD: from obstructive lung disease to chronic systemic inflammatory syndrome?]

COPD is a complex and heterogeneous disease, in which multiple genes and environmental factors are involved. The disease is associated with a high risk of comorbidity and systemic manifestations. The majority of the patients with COPD suffer from additional chronic diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis or cancer. Parameter, assessing selectively the lung function, are only conditionally suited for capturing the COPD as a whole. In future subtyping of COPD might give the opportunity to better understand the heterogeneity of the disease. A holistic approach, understanding COPD not as an isolated disease of the lung, but as a "chronic systemic inflammatory syndrome" (CSIS), promises further improvement. Systemic inflammations seems to be a common mechanism leading to chronic diseases by sharing risk factors like smoking, overweight, hypertension and elevated blood lipids. In response to this approach, the diagnosis and therapy of COPD must include the whole entity of comorbidities.