The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive
Lung Disease (GOLD) published its first
report for the diagnosis and management of
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) in 2001 (1). Since then, GOLD has
updated it yearly (2), the last time in 2022
(www.goldcopd.org). To do so, GOLD
critically evaluates the new evidence since ...
The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive
Lung Disease (GOLD) published its first
report for the diagnosis and management of
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) in 2001 (1). Since then, GOLD has
updated it yearly (2), the last time in 2022
(www.goldcopd.org). To do so, GOLD
critically evaluates the new evidence since the
previous publication and decides whether it
merits (or not) inclusion in the most recent
update. GOLD publishes specific
recommendations and, sometimes, the main
arguments behind them, but it often lacks
space for a detailed discussion regarding the
pros and cons behind each recommendation.
To address this limitation, the Scientific
Committee of GOLD decided to publish,
separately from the main annual update, a
series of papers that review and discuss topics
of particular current interest for clinical
practice.
The GOLD 2019 report recommended
using blood eosinophil counts (BEC) as part
of a precision medicine strategy to identify
the most suitable patients for inhaled
corticosteroids (ICS) treatment (3). Recent
publications have provided further evidence
and insights concerning BEC in COPD.
Here, we discuss the role of BEC as a COPD
biomarker, focusing on new advances and
summarizing the associated changes in the
GOLD 2022 report (shown in Table 1).
