The Evolving Contours of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

• Published in: American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine Vol. 210; no. 5; pp. 535 - 537
• Main Authors: Roche, Nicolas, Han, MeiLan K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Thoracic Society 01.09.2024
• Subjects: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; Health risks; Humans; Lung cancer; Medical screening; Medical treatment; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive - physiopathology
• ISSN: 1073-449X; 1535-4970; 1535-4970
• DOI: 10.1164/rccm.202403-0565ED

Roche and Han discuss the study by Colak et al which describe the occurrence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) during follow-up in subjects with no airflow obstruction. They found that an increased risk of incident COPD during follow-up was independently associated with chronic bronchitis, PRISm, FEV1-FVC less than the lower limit of normal, active smoking history, and asthma. Optimizing the detection of pre-COPD-early COPD in the population would require integrating risk and symptom detection, lung function checks, and systematic reporting of lung cancer screening CT scans in systematic public health programs adapted to the capacity of local healthcare systems and accompanied by information campaigns. New insights into the etiologies and trajectories of crisper and COPD, clinically implementable definitions of early stages represent an important opportunity to improve our understanding of disease development and develop early intervention strategies.