COPD continues to emerge as one of our major challenges in the coming years. The impetus in developing new therapies is gathering speed as the pathophysiological process becomes dissected. The management of the acute and chronic phases of the disease have seen a major awareness of the importance of patient characterization and patient reported outcomes. These aspects are regularly features of all major scientific meetings on respiratory disease but their dissemination throughout busy comprehensive respiratory meetings creates a major challenge to delegates.
For this reason the COPD series was established in Birmingham to gather all key opinion leaders and interested delegates in a single geographically confined site to facilitate interaction discussion and nurture new thoughts and collaboration.
It has been 10 years since the first international, multidisciplinary meeting dedicated to COPD took place in Birmingham, UK. The meeting continues as a biennial event to ensure sufficient new data and thoughts emerge to maintain the interest and enthusiasm of delegates.
COPD6 was no exception and over 670 delegates attended the meeting from 42 countries spread across all 6 continents (Figure 1) and included a wide range of health care workers from basic scientists to allied health care professionals delivering patient care. The meeting bought together leading experts from all over the world producing the unique opportunity to see and meet them face to face in a single venue where delegates and speakers mingle at lunch and break times. This interaction once again culminated in an interactive plenary session on the last day discussing “Practicalities, barriers and opportunities in delivering COPD care” with an enthusiastic and vociferous panel including Professors Sonia Buist, David Price, Bart Celli, Martyn Partridge and Peter Calverley.
The Facts: COPD6 included 4 additional plenary sessions, namely “Management of COPD 1—What clinical trials are telling us” and “2—Impact of co-morbidities,” “Acute care—Exacerbations,” and “Chronic care—getting the patient going.” There were 4 workshops and 12 simultaneous sessions with parallel tracks in basic science, clinical science, and clinical care. A total of 8 Meet the Experts sessions covering many aspects of COPD including transplantation, sleep, bronchiectasis, alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, oxygen assessment, and research funding.
Highlights: Professors Sonia Buist and Robert Senior were given Lifetime Achievement Awards for the long term and exceptional contributions to the field. Rich Casaburi gave an excellent Tim Griffiths Memorial Lecture in honor of Dr. Griffiths who sadly passed away during the previous COPD5 Conference. Rich covered the field of rehabilitation research and delivery in COPD, which obviously included the major contributions made by Tim in his short but productive life.