© 2002 Thorax
EDITORIAL
Exacerbations of COPD
Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
1 Department of Respiratory Medicine, Mater Hospital Trust, Belfast, UK
2 Regional Virology Laboratory, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J Kidney, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Mater Hospital, Crumlin Road, Belfast BT14 6AB, UK;
joekidney@utvinternet.com
Respiratory diseases are the most common cause of death in the UK but, while targets are set for every other major disease category, lung diseases do not get a mention.
Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; exacerbation frequency; bacterial colonisation; viral infection
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Respiratory diseases are the most common cause of death with a 16% higher mortality rate than with coronary heart disease. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the most common chronic respiratory illness. At the end of its long course over 30 000 people die from COPD each year in the UK. It is a disease of the poor, with a death rate in men of working age 14 times higher in unskilled manual workers than in professionals.1
The burden to the health service is enormous. In the UK acute respiratory admissions account for 25% of all emergency medical admissions2 and cost £1.1 billion.3 COPD exacerbations account for more than half of these admissions,2 so are likely to cost in excess of £500 million per annum. In planning for service delivery, COPD admissions throw a spanner in the works. During the summer there is a steady number of
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Bozinovski, S., Hutchinson, A., Thompson, M., MacGregor, L., Black, J., Giannakis, E., Karlsson, A.-S., Silvestrini, R., Smallwood, D., Vlahos, R., Irving, L. B., Anderson, G. P.
(2008). Serum Amyloid A Is a Biomarker of Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med.
177: 269-278
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Rodriguez-Roisin, R
(2006). COPD exacerbations {middle dot} 5: Management.. Thorax
61: 535-544
[Abstract] [Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Drugs: infectious diseases
-
Emergency medicine
-
Ischaemic heart disease
-
General practice / family medicine
-
TB and other respiratory infections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
