The GOLD initiative from 2001 and the update in 2004, as well as the newest guidelines of American Thoracic Society (ATS), European Respiratory Society (ERS) and Canadian Thoracic Society (CTS) are the most commonly accepted therapeutic guidelines. However, a broad application of any one of these guidelines is not possible due to significant differences in respiratory pathogen susceptibility in different regions of the world. It is therefore important to apply guidelines carefully taking these regional differences into consideration.