
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is growing in reocnition as a major chronic disease, and a key cause of acute medical admissions. It kills approximately 30,000 patients each year in England and Wales alone, and is set to be the third commonest cause of death by 2020...

Emphasizing the urgent need to clearly understand the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in COPD, this reference provides an up-to-date perspective on the inflammatory cells, mediators, and molecular pathology of COPD.

This issue of Clinics in Chest Medicine is Guest Edited by Peter J. Barnes FRS, FMedSci from Imperial College London and will fosus on COPD. Article topics include epidemiology, pathophysiology, cellular and molecular mechanisms and comorbidities of COPD, diagnosis and phenotype...