Chest
Special ReportsInterpreting COPD Prevalence Estimates: What Is the True Burden of Disease?
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
A MEDLINE literature search was performed using a strategy that included the medical subject heading term lung diseases, obstructive and key words COPD, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, prevalence, epidemiology, age, smoking, and risk factors, in various combinations. The search period included the entire MEDLINE database, extending back to the mid-1960s. The abstracts for articles identified were reviewed, and relevant articles were selected for retrieval and analysis. The focus of the review
Results
We found 32 sources of COPD prevalence that described the methodology used to calculate prevalence (Table 1).9121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344 These reports were published between 1962 and 2001. All but three of these sources were single-country studies, representing 17 countries, mostly in the developed world. Several developed countries had more than one published prevalence study: these included Canada, England, Norway and Spain (two studies each), Finland
Discussion
The COPD prevalence data presented here demonstrate the paucity of well-designed epidemiologic studies from most regions in the world. In many areas, available information gives an impression of very low prevalence rates. Consequently, policymakers in these areas—thinking that COPD is relatively uncommon—often assign a low priority to COPD when allocating health expenditures. Physicians in these areas may be less likely to suspect COPD, and less likely to correctly diagnose it, reinforcing the
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At the time of initial manuscript preparation, all authors were employees of Protocare Sciences, a firm offering consulting services to the health-care industry, including pharmaceutical manufacturers.
This work was supported by a grant from Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH.