Rinosinusitis y EPOC: dos enfermedades concomitantes u otra evidencia de sólo una enfermedad de la vía aérea

Rhinosinusitis is a determinant for pulmonary function decline, which very often coexists along with asthma. The mechanism by which repetitive and continue irritating tobacco smoke exposure leads to inflammation is well described. If that is able to produce this injuries and disorders at lower airway level, it expects there are upper airway inflammatory changes as well. Evidence suggests, tobacco smoking affects the nasal mucociliary clearance apparatus. Upper and lower airway are connected because they share morphological and functional features. Acute exacerbations of COPD are accompanied by nasal symptoms and both compartments have the same infectious bacteriological pattern. The prevalence of sinusitis in COPD is just known by surveys, being from 12% up to 88%. The sinusitis approach of COPD, by using Sinus Computed Tomography as the gold standard has been done recently and the prevalence is 51%. Simultaneous inflammation has been demonstrated in both compartments, as in stable as in exacerbation state by cytokines increment. Respiratory system is just one unique airway along