In order to have information on what is researched about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Chile, a search about Chilean publications in biomedical on COPD research was carried out. MEDLINE and LILACS indices were reviewed from 1982 to 2001. Additionally, the research abstracts on COPD research presented at the five last Chilean Annual Meetings on Respiratory Diseases were also reviewed. The most frequent research topics on COPD in full papers published in biomedical journals were: ventilatory muscle training (28%), followed by physical activity in patients with COPD (18%), use of non-invasive mechanical ventilation (15%) and pharmacological treatments. In the abstracts, the order of the most frequent topics on COPD research was physical training (30%), use of non-invasive mechanical ventilation (20%), ventilatory muscle training (13%) and experimental animal research. Annual average number of abstracts between 1997-99/ annual (1999-2001) average number of publication ratio was 2.9: 1 suggesting that out of 3 abstracts only one is published as a full paper. Although a valuable research is being carried out in Chile on ventilatory muscle physiology in COPD, epidemiological and clinical research should be increased and improved, in order to obtain a better understanding of our COPD patients