Personalised multidisciplinary management for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major cause of mortality, morbidity (breathlessness, cough, impaired quality of life, infective exacerbations), health care costs (hospitalisations, emergency department visits, medication costs) and lost work productivity globally. Solutions to overcome this enormous burden of disease are urgently needed. In this Journal of Thoracic Disease Focused Issue on ‘Advances in Multidisciplinary Care for COPD’, the themes of diagnosis, pathogenesis, treatment and multimorbidities are comprehensively addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective. All of these themes build upon current preventive strategies in public health, to minimize exposure to tobacco smoke, air pollution, occupational dusts and other factors leading to COPD.