It is over 6?years since the last NICE COPD guideline was published,2 and it is important to note that this 2010 version is only a partial update, concentrating on various aspects of diagnosis and severity classification and the management of stable disease. The management of acute ...
4 which update the COPD guidelines first published by NICE in 2004.5 The summary contains the most important recommendations relating to new diagnostic criteria for COPD, changes to the classification of severity of airflow obstruction, the need for multidimensional severity assessment, a new algorithm...
The NICE guidelines note that this classification relates specifically to degrees of airflow obstruction which are arbitrary and may not be closely related to degrees of clinical severity in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).2 The current use of the term 'severe' for airflow obstruction ...