A study presented at ATS 2013 found that over 40 percent of uninsured patients treated for COPD at a US clinic did not actually have COPD. Researchers from Northeast Ohio Medical University and Saint Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown assessed 80 patients at a health center in Akron, Ohio using spirometry. All of the patients had either been diagnosed with COPD or had been prescribed an anticholinergic inhaler, presumably to treat COPD symptoms.
Only about 18% of the patients had previously been evaluated with spirometry, contrary to Global Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) recommendations for diagnosis. Three patients were less than 35 of age, and five patients had never smoked.
The researchers found that over 42 percent of patients had no airway obstruction at all, and 23 percent had obstruction that was reversible, indicative of possible asthma rather than COPD. The researchers found that only about a third of the patients had non-reversible obstruction.
Study co-author Christian Ghattas said “We were shocked at the percentage. . . . Although the number of patients in our study was small, I believe this study is representative of an uninsured and underserved patient population. However, the findings might be different among patients who are insured. They might be higher or lower—we simply don’t know.”
Co-author Magdi Awad added, “This study confirms that symptoms alone are insufficient to make a COPD diagnosis. Shortness of breath, cough, and sputum production can indicate other respiratory problems like allergies—or they may be symptoms of a heart problems or of simply being overweight.”
Read the ATS press release.
