Concomitant chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a well-established determinant of poor prognosis in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) COPD is frequently undiagnosed in patients with IHD.

In patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) we found undiagnosed COPD in the 29% of cases (95%CI 21%–36%).

Our study is the first one trying to validate a simple, reproducible, quick test to screen undiagnosed COPD in ACS patients.

The proposed screening is simple, safe, inexpensive and feasible just few days after the acute event.

This simple screening applied by cardiologists might be sufficient to identify those patients with a negligible risk of concomitant undiagnosed COPD.