COPD and Emotional Health - American Lung Association

Patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often receive systemic corticosteroids from multiple specialties, and that cumulative exposure is rarely tracked in 1 place. At the same time, the options for reducing reliance on oral steroids have grown, with approvals of dupilumab and mepolizumab for eosinophilic COPD and of depemokimab, a twice-yearly anti-interleukin (IL)-5 agent, for severe asthma.1-4 Clinicians outside pulmonology increasingly manage these patients when specialty access is limited. On October 6, 2026, Mollie Chartoff, FNP-BC, a nurse practitioner on the advanced COPD team at Vanderbilt Lung Institute in Nashville, Tennessee, moderated a virtual clinical forum for advanced practice providers on asthma and COPD. Participants included nurse practitioners and physician assistants in pulmonology, allergy and asthma, dermatology, oncology, and interventional pain practices in Tennessee, Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina. The discussion covered biomarkers, oral corticosteroid (OCS) exposure, biologic selection, and access barriers.

At CHEST 2026, Pourshahid argued for matching patients to center-based, hybrid, or virtual pulmonary rehab based on a structured assessment. Arguing the pro side of a debate at the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) 2026 Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Omid Pourshahid, MD, MPH, FCCP, Medical Director, Pulmonary Rehabilitation, Temple University Hospital, said pulmonary rehabilitation should be tailored to each patient’s clinical status and barriers to care rather than delivered through a single center-based model.¹The position builds on a long-standing gap in pulmonary rehabilitation uptake. In a retrospective cohort of 197,376 Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized for COPD in 2014, only 2721 (1.5%) initiated pulmonary rehabilitation within 90 days of discharge.² Initiation within the 90-day window was associated with a lower risk of death at 1 year (hazard ratio [HR], 0.63; 95% CI, 0.57-0.69; P <.001).

Pakistani health officials have confirmed the seventh polio case of 2026 for Pakistan from Karachi East District in Sindh. The affected child is a six-month-old male from Union Council Jamali Colony of Karachi East. The last case from Karachi was reported in December 2024. Of this year’s 7 reported cases, five are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (four from southern KP alone) and two are from Sindh. Despite an overall decline in wild poliovirus transmission, Karachi has continued to report environmental detections throughout the year, indicating that ongoing transmission remains a real threat for children. Subscribe to Outbreak News TV on YouTubeIn 2026, Pakistan has already implemented four large-scale polio campaigns, protecting more than 45 million children multiple times, alongside smaller targeted oral and injectable vaccination campaigns in high-risk areas. In September, a subnational campaign protected over 29.3 million children across the country, while the next vaccination round is scheduled from November 2-8 to protect nearly 24 million in 97 districts, including all districts of Karachi.