Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and comorbidities

The exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Heart failure (HF) are leading causes of hospitalization in the services of Internal Medicine in Spain. Moreover, both entities often coexist. COPD is an entity which frequently transcends the lung and is associated with a large number of diseases affecting different organs. Among these ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, recurrent pulmonary infections, etc. In such situations tobacco play an important role as the main risk factor for developing COPD and as the etiologic factor in other processes. The ability of tobacco to induce inflammatory reactions makes COPD share many common features with a variety of systemic process. However, such an agent does not fully explain the increased incidence in COPD of the other entities like depression or diabetes mellitus. In any case, the presence of COPD in addition to other comorbidities increases mortality and difficult to manage these patients.