Nearly 33% Patients Screened With COPD Found To Be Non-Smokers, Big Reason To Worry
Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease or COPD is the 2nd leading cause of death in the country with more than 2,400 deaths due to COPD reported every day here. This number is more than the number of people who die because of tuberculosis (1157), diabetes (748), and HIV-AIDS (126) all put together. There are an estimated 50 million people living with COPD in India, according to the latest figures. Air Pollution and tobacco smoking are the major factors responsible for COPD in India. According to 2019 GBD Report, COPD due to tobacco smoking is 29% whereas COPD due to air pollution is 53.3% in India. Yet, the deadly disease does not receive the recognition that it deserves.
Every year, 17th November is observed as the World COPD Day to highlight the burden and impact of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and to create awareness about this disease and educate people to keep their lungs healthy. To mark this day, CREST, an institute dedicated for research and education in the field of chronic lung diseases based in Pune, organized a weeklong nationwide screening program for COPD called as "SCREEN" including 44 medical colleges across India.
During the screening program, it was noticed that every 6th patient who visited a Chest OPD had COPD. Total 2440 patients visited OPD for screening, out of those 269 (11%) were found to have COPD, in which 75% were males and 25% were females. Concerningly, nearly 33% patient screened with COPD were non-smokers. This is a big reason to worry, CREST said in a press release.
Beware of the causes of COPD
Dr. Sundeep Salvi, Director, CREST, highlighted that COPD is a chronic, progressive lung disease with intermittent periods of exacerbations, called lung attacks, that can often be fatal. It is caused by long-term exposure to noxious pollutants that causes damage to the breathing tubes and the gas exchange portion of the lung.
Tobacco smoking in any form, household air pollution from the burning of biomass fuels for cooking purposes, burning of mosquito coils, long-term exposure to ambient air pollution from motor vehicular exhausts, industry smoke, road dust, and working in dusty workplaces for many years are the risk factors associated with COPD. Recurrent respiratory tract infections during childhood, poverty, and chronic poorly treated asthma are the other causes of COPD, he stated.
How to reduce the burden of COPD in India
CREST's nationwide screening program highlighted the huge burden of COPD in India. Use of a simple COPD screening tool followed by Spirometry among those who are screen positive both in the clinic as well as in the community is required to make an early and accurate diagnosis of COPD. But many doctors or hospitals across India do not have this test, and as a result, a lot of COPD remains undiagnosed and wrongly diagnosed. This leads to undertreatment and wrong treatment and therefore more suffering and death, Dr. Salvi noted.
To reduce the burden of COPD in India, the use of spirometry needs to be increased as well as availability of simple, easy-to-use, cheap, and accurate spirometers in the country. In addition, COPD needs to be recognized as an important disease in India. Because awareness, prevention, early diagnosis, and appropriate management, including pulmonary rehabilitation, are the key to reducing the burden of COPD in India, the institute pointed out in its release.