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COPD is a slowly progressive chronic respiratory disease causing an irreversible decrease in air flow. The main cause is smoking, which provokes inflammatory phenomena in the respiratory tract. COPD is a serious public health issue, causing high morbidity, mortality and disability. Related comorbidities are linked to ageing, common risk factors and genetic predispositions. A combination of comorbidities increases healthcare costs. For instance, patients with more than two comorbidities represent a quarter of all COPD sufferers but account for half the related health costs. Our review describes different comorbidities and their impact on the COPD prognosis. The comorbidities include: cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, denutrition, obesity, ageing, anemia, sleeping disorders, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, anxiety-depression and lung cancer. The prognosis worsens with one or more comorbidities. Clinicians are faced with the challenge of finding practical and appropriate ways of treating these comorbidities, and there is increasing interest in developing a global, multidisciplinary approach to management. Managing this chronic disease should be based on a holistic, patient-centred approach and smoking cessation remains the key factor in the care of COPD patients., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

The authors describe the case of a patient presenting miliary involvement of the lung due to mycobacterium bovis after intravesical BCG administration. After initial transurethral resection, the patient was treated with immunotherapy by intravesical instillation of BCG and received 9 treatments without any problem. After the 10th treatment, the patient presented with cough and signs of urinary infection. At admission the chest radiograph showed a miliary pattern, better seen at high resolution CT, and using helical technique with the maximum intensity projection (MIP) reconstructions. MIP demonstrated to better advantage the well defined contours of the nodules, distributed evenly and randomly in the whole lung. After anti-TB treatment, the patient had regained full activity with persistence of the miliary pattern but a decreased number and size of nodules and calcification in some of them. This case illustrates a rare complication of intravesical immunotherapy, and points out the superiority of Sliding Thin Slab MIP (STS-MIP) compared with standard HRCT which allows a better detection of extent and follow-up of a military pattern, notably in moderate forms, by improvement of the anatomical resolution.

The study of the genic and antigenic frequencies of the ABO and Rhesus systems amidst a population of 16559 subjects, reveals are very good correlation as regards the various autors. Considering the HLA typing of 481 subjects, one will point out the lowering of the HLA2 antigen.