Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease

The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) is a non-profit organization started by the World Health Organization and the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 1997 to improve care for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).[1][2] They have organized the annual awareness day, World COPD Day, every November since 2002.[3]

This organization issues recommendations for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and related medical conditions. GOLD issued its first formal recommendations in 2001.[2] Their approach departed from previous medical guidelines in two significant respects:

  • Previous recommendations were usually written by groups of experts, usually from a single medical specialty, partly on the basis of their own experiences.[2] They were the first to evaluate the levels of evidence that supported their recommendations.[2] GOLD's approach to evidence-based medicine was more rigorous than the previous COPD recommendations, but other organizations, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, use more complex systems.[2]
  • GOLD's recommendations are also updated more frequently than was typical in the past.[2] This allows the recommendations to include newer evidence.

Adoption edit

The GOLD grading system for classifying the severity of COPD is widely used worldwide.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ Rodriguez-Roisin, Roberto (March 2019). Twenty years of GOLD (1997-2017). The origins (PDF) (Report).
  2. ^ a b c d e f Calverley, Peter M. A.; Macnee, William (2012-12-11). "Guidlines for COPD Management". Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (2 ed.). CRC Press. pp. 507–508. ISBN 978-1-4441-1393-8.
  3. ^ Raja, Lakshay (19 November 2020). "World COPD Day 2020: History, significance and theme for this year". Jagran English. Jagran New Media.
  4. ^ Al-Ruzzeh, Sharif; Kurup, Viji (2012-03-02). Marschall, Katherine (ed.). Stoelting's Anesthesia and Co-Existing Disease E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 189. ISBN 978-1-4557-3812-0.