What the First Issue of 2017 BRN Reviews Features…

It is acknowledged that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) represents a very serious overall challenge to the global respiratory community. One of the best examples of such a statement is the article written by María Montes de Oca and Victorina López, former Asociación Latinoamericana del Tórax (ALAT) Presidents, in which the essential features of the PLATINO (Proyecto Latino-Ame­ri­ca­no de Investigación en Obstrucción Pulmonar) study are extensively reported. The PLATINO project is an extraordinary survey entirely developed in Latin America over the last 15 years to assess the burden of COPD in five low- and middle-income representative cities of this part of the world (São Paulo, Brazil, Santiago, Chile, Mexico City, Mexico, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Caracas, Venezuela). PLATINO, a brilliant initiative of ALAT, has filled in an important gap in the epidemiological knowledge of COPD in Latin America, along with the improvement of our current understanding of the main features of the disease from the study of a general population. Key aspects of the study include prevalence, diagnosis accuracy, and management and also risk factors, clinical patterns, follow-up, and diagnosis stability over time related to COPD in South America.