[Approach to COPD management in Internal Medicine]

A 60-year old male patient with obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus consulted due to high blood pressure, fearful of suffering ischemic heart disease. He also had a background of smoking 20 cigarettes/day for the last 30 years, but this did not concern him. In the questioning, he reported, although he did not consider it important, that he had cough and dyspnea on moderate exertions for some years. It is very unlikely that any internal medicine physician would doubt about whether to evaluate and treat his type 2 diabetes mellitus or high blood pressure, calculate his cardiovascular risk or if he has a metabolic syndrome, attempt to reduce his obesity and to make him stop smoking. However, should we label him as having chronic bronchitis or COPD? Should we perform a spirometry and bronchodilator test, treat his probable COPD? All his current symptoms are probably only due to COPD.