An international panel of experts presented a comprehensive clinical framework for COPD diagnosis at the 2021 International Meeting on Asthma and COPD hosted in Florence, Italy. The framework, called “Rome Proposal”, recommends a set of six clinically measurable variables – dyspnoea, respiratory and heart rate, SaO2, hypoxemia and hypercapnia, and serum C-reactive protein levels – to diagnose exacerbated COPD. The guidelines also clarified that these symptoms can be analysed in relation to each other so as to perform a differential diagnosis of conditions such as pneumonia, thromboembolism and heart failure.