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Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 40 million people each year. The management of chronic respiratory NCDs such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is particularly critical in Italy, where they are widespread and represent a heavy burden on healthcare resources. It is thus important to redefine the role and responsibility of respiratory specialists and their scientific societies, together with that of the whole healthcare system, in order to create a sustainable management of COPD, which could become a model for other chronic respiratory conditions., Methods: These issues were divided into four main topics (Training, Organization, Responsibilities, and Sustainability) and discussed at a Consensus Conference promoted by the Research Center of the Italian Respiratory Society held in Rome, Italy, 3-4 November 2016., Results and Conclusions: Regarding training, important inadequacies emerged regarding specialist training - both the duration of practical training courses and teaching about chronic diseases like COPD. A better integration between university and teaching hospitals would improve the quality of specialization. A better organizational integration between hospital and specialists/general practitioners (GPs) in the local community is essential to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for chronic respiratory patients. Improving the care pathways is the joint responsibility of respiratory specialists, GPs, patients and their caregivers, and the healthcare system. The sustainability of the entire system depends on a better organization of the diagnostic-therapeutic pathways, in which also other stakeholders such as pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies can play an important role.

Introduction: Recently it has been shown in animal models of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that stem cells significantly slow the progression of the disease and prolong survival. We have evaluated the feasibility and safety of a method of intraspinal cord implantation of autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in a few well-monitored patients with ALS., Method: Bone marrow collection was performed according to the standard procedure by aspiration from the posterior iliac crest. Ex vivo expansion of mesenchymal stem cells was induced according to Pittenger's protocol. The cells were suspended in 2 ml of autologous cerebrospinal fluid and transplanted into the spinal cord by a micrometric pump injector., Results: No patient manifested major adverse events such as respiratory failure or death. Minor adverse events were intercostal pain irradiation (4 patients) which was reversible after a mean period of three days after surgery, and leg sensory dysesthesia (5 patients) which was reversible after a mean period of six weeks after surgery. No modification of the spinal cord volume or other signs of abnormal cell proliferation were observed., Conclusions: Our results appear to demonstrate that the procedures of ex vivo expansion of autologous mesenchymal stem cells and of transplantation into the spinal cord of humans are safe and well tolerated by ALS patients.