The Impact of Heart Failure on the Classification of COPD Severity
Journal of Cardiac Failure, 08/10/2012
Güder G et al. – In stable heart failure (HF), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) may be significantly reduced even in the absence of “real” airflow obstruction. In this situation, diagnosing COPD according to GOLD criteria (based on FEV1/FVC) still seems feasible, because both FEV1 and forced vital capacity (FVC) are usually decreased to an equal extent in HF. However, classifying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on FEV1 levels may overrate obstruction severity in patients with combined disease, and thus may lead to unjustified use of bronchodilators.
