OBJECTIVES To compare standard high flow oxygen treatment with titrated oxygen treatment for patients with an acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the prehospital setting. DESIGN Cluster randomised controlled parallel group trial. SETTING Ambulance service in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. PARTICIPANTS 405 patients with a presumed acute exacerbation of chronic obst...

Chronic obstructive lung disease has been reported as a cause of osteoporosis, though whether this association is due to the disease itself or to corticosteroid treatment has not been elucidated. We studied 44 male patients with chronic obstructive lung disease (mean (SD) FEVy 39% (14%) of predicted normal) who were not having long term corticosteroids. No differences in a vertebral deformity s...

1 Suissa S, Ernst P, Vandemheen KL, Aaron SD. Methodological issues in therapeutic trials of COPD. Eur Respir J 2008; 31: 927–933. 2 Sin DD, Wu L, Anderson JA, et al. Inhaled corticosteroids and mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Thorax 2005; 60: 992–997. 3 Calverley PM, Anderson JA, Celli B, et al. Salmeterol and fluticasone propionate and survival in chronic obstructive pulmo...

The present study aimed to measure physical activity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to: 1) identify the disease stage at which physical activity becomes limited; 2) investigate the relationship of clinical characteristics with physical activity; 3) evaluate the predictive power of clinical characteristics identifying very inactive patients; and 4) analyse the reli...