Pulmonary & Respiratory Medicine

Bronchiectasis in COPD: A New Phenotype of COPD with Particular Attention

Abstract

Jie Liu, Xiangda Lao, Xinjun Tang, Shujing Chen, Dong Yang, Lin Tong, Xiaoyan Jin and Yuanlin Song

Bronchiectasis in Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been recognized as a potential new phenotype of COPD in recent years due to different clinical presentation, prognosis and treatment response. Broad application of CT scan significantly increased identification of bronchiectasis in COPDpatients. Although the exact mechanism of bronchiectasis development in COPD is lacking, the chronic airway inflammation, colonization of particular bacteria strain such as P. aeruginosa and continuous airway reconstruction may proceed to airway damage and following bronchiectasis. The significance of identifying bronchiectasis in COPD patients is to improve patients’ management through more individualized treatment regimen. Given the poor prognosis in COPD patients with bronchiectasis and limited evidenced based clinical experience, it is therefore essential to have high quality clinical trials conducted in this group of patients.