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Background: The PLATINO baseline study, conducted from 2003-2005 in five Latin American cities (São Paulo, Mexico City, Montevideo, Santiago, Caracas), showed a high prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)., Methods/design: A follow-up study was conducted in three out of the five centers (Montevideo, Santiago, and São Paulo) after a period of 5, 6 and 9years, respectively, aimed at verifying the stability of the COPD diagnosis over time, the evolution of the disease in terms of survival, morbidity and respiratory function, and the analyses of inflammatory and genetic biomarkers in the blood. Some questions were added to the original questionnaire and death certificates were obtained from the national official registries., Results: The fieldwork has been concluded in the three centers. From the original samples in the PLATINO study phasei, we were able to locate and interview 85.6% of patients in Montevideo, 84.7% in Santiago and 77.7% in São Paulo. Individuals who could not be located had higher education levels in Brazil, and were more likely to be current smokers in Santiago and São Paulo than in Montevideo. The overall quality of spirometries was ≥80% according to American Thoracic Society criteria. The number of deaths was 71 (Montevideo), 95 (Santiago) and 135 (São Paulo), with death certificates obtained from the national mortality registries for 76.1%, 88.3% and 91.8% of cases in Montevideo, Santiago and São Paulo, respectively., Conclusions: This study shows that is possible to perform population-based longitudinal studies in Latin American with high follow-up rates and high-quality spirometry data. The adequacy of national mortality registries varies among centers in Latin America., (Copyright © 2013 SEPAR. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Comorbidities are common in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and have a significant impact on health status and prognosis. The PLATINO study provides data on self-reported comorbidities and perceived health status in COPD subjects., Methods: PLATINO is a population-based study on COPD prevalence in five Latin American cities. COPD diagnosis was defined by GOLD criteria (FEV1/FVC<.70 post-bronchodilator). Information was collected on the following comorbidities: heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, peptic ulcer and asthma. Health status was evaluated using the SF-12 questionnaire, derived from the question: «In general, would you say your health is excellent, very good, good, fair or poor?». A simple comorbidity score was calculated by adding the total number of comorbid conditions., Results: Of a total population of 5314individuals, 759 had COPD. Reported comorbidities by decreasing frequency were: any cardiovascular disease, hypertension, peptic ulcer, heart disease, diabetes, cerebrovascular disease, asthma and lung cancer. COPD patients had a higher comorbidity score and prevalence of lung cancer (P<.0001) and asthma (P<.0001), as well as a higher tendency to have hypertension (P=.0652) and cerebrovascular disease (P=.0750). Factors associated with comorbidities were age, body mass index (BMI) and female gender. The number of comorbidities increased as the health status deteriorated., Conclusions: In the PLATINO population-based study, COPD individuals had an increased number of comorbidities. Age, female gender and higher BMI were the factors associated with comorbidity in these patients. Comorbid conditions were associated with impaired health status, independently of the COPD status., (Copyright © 2013 SEPAR. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.)

Objective: PLATINO project is a population-based study designed to determine the prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in São Paulo, Brazil; Mexico City, Mexico; Montevideo, Uruguay; Santiago de Chile, Chile; and Caracas, Venezuela. The objective of this portion of PLATINO was to describe preventive and pharmacological treatment of COPD patients and factors associated with such treatment., Patients and Methods: Eligible subjects completed a questionnaire and underwent postbronchodilator spirometry., Results: Of the total of 5529 individuals who answered items referring to treatment, 758 had COPD (ratio of postbronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second to forced vital capacity of <0.7), and 86 of them had been previously diagnosed by a physician. Among all COPD patients, only half of smokers or former smokers had been advised to quit and 24.7% had received some type of respiratory medication. Only 13.5% had used inhaled corticosteroids, and those were the patients with the most severe disease. In the group of patients who had a previous medical diagnosis of COPD, 69% of the smokers or former smokers had been advised to quit by a physician and 75.6% had received respiratory medication in the preceding year: 43% reported having used inhaled medication and 36% had used bronchodilators. Rates of vaccination against influenza and the use of mucolytic drugs and inhalers varied from one health care facility to another. All drug prescriptions were based on previous spirometry., Conclusions: Spirometry emerged not only as a diagnostic tool, but also as a factor associated with treatment, against a background of uneven use of available health care resources in these 5 Latin American cities.

Objective: The criteria for disease severity established by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease are based on forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) expressed as a percentage of the predicted value after application of a bronchodilator. This study aims to determine postbronchodilator spirometry reference values., Subjects and Methods: A cluster sample of subjects aged 40 years or over was chosen to be representative of the metropolitan areas of 5 Latin American cities (São Paulo, Mexico City, Montevideo, Santiago, and Caracas). Spirometry was performed on 5183 subjects following the recommendations of the American Thoracic Society before and after inhalation of 200 microg of salbutamol. Multiple linear regression equations were fitted for the postbronchodilator spirometric values-FEV1, forced expiratory volume in 6 seconds (FEV6), peak expiratory flow rate, forced vital capacity (FVC), FEV1/FEV6, FEV1/FVC and forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75% of vital capacity (FEF25-75). These were adjusted for sex, age, and height in 887 asymptomatic subjects with no history of lung disease., Results: The postbronchodilator reference values for FEV1, FEV1/FVC, and FEV1/FEV6 were on average 3% higher than those obtained before bronchodilation. This apparently small difference caused an upward shift in the 5th percentile (lower limit of normal) of the predicted values. When prebronchodilation instead of postbronchodilation reference values were used, 3.2% of the results for airflow obstruction in our population of over-40-year-olds were false negatives., Conclusions: The reported reference values are more appropriate for postbronchodilator spirometry and make it possible to reduce the number of misclassifications.

Objective: In clinical practice, spirometry is a extremely useful test that requires strict quality control, an appropriate strategy for interpretation, and reliable reference values. The aim of this study was to report spirometric reference values for 5 cities in Latin America., Patients and Methods: From data for 5315 subjects who had undergone spirometry in the PLATINO study in Caracas, Mexico City, Santiago, São Paulo, and Montevideo, we selected information for 906 (17%) individuals aged between 40 years and 90 years to provide reference values. The chosen subjects had never smoked, were asymptomatic, had not been diagnosed with lung disease, and were not obese. Multiple regression models were constructed with the following spirometric parameters: forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and in 6 seconds (FEV6), peak expiratory flow, forced vital capacity (FVC), FEV1/FEV6, FEV1/FVC, and forced midexpiratory flow rate. Height, sex, and age were also included in the model., Results: Average values for the subjects studied were similar to those for the white North American population and the Mexican-American population of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, but exceeded those of the black population of the same survey by 20%., Conclusions: The proposed reference values are an improvement on those currently available for Latin America because the participants were chosen by population sampling methods and standardized up-to-date methodology was used.

Objective: This study was designed to assess changes in skeletal muscle characteristics after 6 weeks' high-intensity physical training of patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and to determine how the changes were related to improvements in exercise tolerance and health related quality of life (HRQL)., Patients and Methods: Ten patients with a mean (SD) age of 60 (10) years and a forced expiratory volume in 1 second of 32% (9%) were enrolled. The effect of training on the 6-minute walk test, HRQL questionnaires, and skeletal muscles was examined for the 8 patients who completed the program. The structural and chemical characteristics of skeletal muscles before and after training were studied in vastus lateralis muscle biopsies., Results: Training significantly modified the 6-minute walk test (P<.01), HRQL (P<.05), and citrate synthetase activity (P<.05). Changes in distances walked during the 6-minute walk test were significantly related to changes in the mean area of fibers (r=0.81)., Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that 6 weeks of high-intensity physical training of COPD patients produces moderate changes in skeletal muscles which could partly explain improvements observed in exercise tolerance after respiratory rehabilitation.