Current opinion in pulmonary medicine
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Occupational and environmental lung disease is a vast topic. Therefore, this review focuses on areas that represent new clinical insights that have not been addressed recently in Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine. The topics are considered important for the future and emphasize diseases that strike large numbers of people or exposures that affect large segments of the population. ⋯ The new world of occupational and environmental lung diseases often involves low levels of exposure to complex mixtures of materials that produce nonspecific or intermittent symptoms in a subgroup of exposed individuals. Interactions between genetic susceptibility, concomitant tobacco smoke exposure, and co-morbid diseases hugely complicate both diagnosis and prevention. New tools, and possibly new thought paradigms, are needed to detect, treat, and prevent occupational and environmental lung diseases in a changing world.
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The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) was developed recently to unify international efforts in the management of the disease. The most important GOLD objective is raising awareness that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an increasing health problem. The first step in the GOLD program was to prepare a consensus report, named "Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD," based on best-validated evidence and current pathogenetic and clinical knowledge. It encourages implementation of effective strategies for prevention, diagnosis, and management of the disease in all countries, and emphasizes the importance of renewed research initiatives.