EDITORIAL
Underdiagnosis of COPD
Underdiagnosed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in England: new country, same story
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr D M Mannino
Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, University of Kentucky Medical Center, 740 S Limestone, K-528, Lexington, KY 40536, USA; dmannino@uky.edu
Underdiagnosis or misdiagnosis of COPD is a problem in England too
Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; prevalence; spirometry; smoking; England
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains one of the leading causes of disability and death in the developed world, and is emerging as increasingly important in the developing world. Despite its importance, COPD is not well recognised by the general public and frequently goes undiagnosed in people who have evidence of it. This underdiagnosis of people with evidence of obstruction on spirometry (generally adults with an FEV1/FVC ratio <70%) has been previously documented in the United States1 and Korea.2
The paper by Shahab and colleagues in this issue of Thorax shows that underdiagnosis and, in all likelihood, misdiagnosis, is a factor in England also.3 Their key finding was that 13.3% of the population aged 35 and older had evidence of COPD that would, in general, correspond to GOLD stage 1 or more severe disease.4 Bronchodilator response was not evaluated, so this would not meet strict GOLD
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Thorax 2006 61: 1029.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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