Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite its prevalence, many real-world data (RWD) sources lack the clinical depth needed to understand the disease’s progression, treatment impact, and patient outcomes. PHARMO’s integrated data network in the Netherlands offers a unique advantage—linking multiple healthcare data streams with exceptional granularity, enabling nuanced analyses that go beyond standard claims or electronic health records.
Research challenge
Classifying disease severity in COPD remains challenging, with frameworks such as the GOLD criteria often limited by overlap between categories and variability in patient presentation. Distinguishing between mild, moderate, and severe disease can be complicated by heterogeneous symptom burden and differences in lung function decline, making these labels less precise in clinical practice. Treatment sequencing is similarly complex—patients frequently require combinations of bronchodilators, inhaled corticosteroids, and other agents, with timing and escalation guided by a mix of symptom control, exacerbation history, and evolving guideline recommendations. Yet definitions of exacerbation vary across studies and guidelines, ranging from symptom-based criteria to healthcare utilization metrics, which can influence the reported frequency and the decision to escalate therapy. Moreover, in RWD sources, critical respiratory outcomes such as forced expiratory volume (FEV₁) and other spirometric measures are inconsistently captured, limiting the ability to track disease progression or evaluate treatment impact outside controlled trials. This variability underscores the need for more standardized definitions, longitudinal data collection, and integrated clinical decision frameworks to improve COPD management.
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