Figure 2.

The most popular chronic obstructive pulmonary disease classifications: ERS, European Respiratory Society; ATS, American Thoracic Society; SPLF, Société de Pneumologie de Langue Française; BTS, British Thoracic Society; GOLD, Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease; FEV₁, forced expiratory volume in 1 second. ATS, BTS, ERS and SPLF classifications define three stages of severity between 0% and 100% (ATS and ERS) or 80% (BTS and SPLF) of predicted FEV₁. The most recent classification is the GOLD classification, which was initially proposed in 2001 and has been modified twice, in 2003 and 2006. In 2003, the GOLD classification evolved from three to four stages plus a supplementary stage 0 defining patients at risk (that is, the presence of chronic cough and sputum, but no obstruction together with FEV₁ over forced vital capacity ratio >70%; stage 0 is not shown in the figure), and stage 0 was not kept in the GOLD classification system in 2006.