When diagnosed with COPD, patients over 45 years old are often in late or intermediate stages. Their COPD has been a disease in hiding for years. They think shortness of breath and gasping for air are normal traits for their later years.
We might have A New Testing Tool for COPD
A big problem with COPD treatment is that the disease depends on this very myth, to disguise it as it lessens the quality of life.
Disease in Hiding: COPD
“According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, more than 12 million Americans are diagnosed with COPD, the third leading cause of death in the country. It is estimated that another 12 million have the disease but have not been diagnosed.”
Here at FLASS, Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists, when we find such patients, we often wish their primary care physicians could have helped diagnose them sooner. Soon, there might be a novel, simple, inexpensive tool that helps them do exactly that!
Dr. James Kiley Division of Lung Diseases at NHLBI, stated that some research scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have devised a simple way to “…help practitioners improve care by finding people who have COPD but didn’t know it.” They propose to stalk and catch this killer disease sooner, by asking just the right questions on a small card.
Stalking Disease: Can We Identify COPD Patients Sooner?
He added, “The hope is that by finding individuals with COPD at an earlier stage of illness, we might be able to offer them treatments which can improve their disease. NHLBI’s support of the research that led to this tool exemplifies the ongoing commitment of NHLBI to COPD research.”
Can A Paper Form Be a Health Diagnostic Tool?
The lead author of the study, Fernando J. Martinez, MD, MS, chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, has recently published his novel approach in the Journal of Thoracic Surgery, entitled, “A New Approach for Identifying Patients with Undiagnosed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.” Dr. Martinez and his team and colleagues report results of a novel method they developed to seek out the silent sufferers of COPD.
It is a written tool, a basic 5 question form for primary care givers to pass out with other information forms when a patient attends their primary caregiver’s office or clinic. The sole purpose of the form is to identify “patients with COPD of a severity significant enough to justify therapy with currently available agents.”
The Case Study Procedure
There were several simple steps involving proof that the form would seek and find patient who could be unaware he or she was suffering COPD.
1. Meet the Tool: Known as the “Assessment in Primary Care To Identify Undiagnosed Respiratory Disease and Exacerbation Risk (CAPTURETM).” Patients responded on a small card to 5 questions. The questions, carefully crafted at a sixth-grade reading level, regard smoke and pollution, breathing problems, tiring problems, and history of acute respiratory illness.
COPD Can Be Stalked in a Waiting Room. Is this disease hiding in you?
2. Written at a sixth-grade level, these five questions assess smoke and pollution exposure, breathing problems, how easily the patient tires and number of acute respiratory illnesses.
3. Based on the answers, if the revelations show high risk for COPD symptoms and excerbations, the patient is immediately referred for definitive diagnostic tests.
4. Patients whose answers indicate need no symptoms of COPD need no further testing.
5. Those whose answers indicate the middle range of risk, will be asked to perform a PEF test, a simple exhalation evaluative test, right then and there, during the visit.
On that test, “Men who exhale less than 350 liters/minute and women who exhale less than 250 liters/minute are referred for definitive testing.”
COPD Can not Hide from CAPTURETM and PEF–Surprisingly Accurate Results of Research
Researchers gave the 5 question test to over 300 patients, awaiting appointments at their primary care giver’s office. Amazingly, they discovered 52 percent of subjects required PEF!
A. The questionnaire, named CAPTURETM, plus the PEF was successful with a “high rate of sensitivity (89.7 percent) and specificity (78.1 percent) for cases versus controls, including those with mild COPD.”
B. Even more amazing was the fact that, “The sensitivity was similar, but the specificity rose to 93.1 percent when cases were compared to non-COPD controls.”
Below you will find the five questions. How would you answer them?
1. (Workplace Environment) Have your ever lived or worked in a place with dirty or polluted air, smoke, second-hand smoke or dust?
2. (Changes in Breathing) Does your breathing change with seasons, weather, or air quality?
3. Does your breathing make it difficult to do things such as carry heavy loads, shovel dirt or snow, jog, play tennis, or swim?
4. Compared to others your age, do you tire easily?
5. In the past 12 months, how many times did you miss work, school, or other activities due to a cold, bronchitis, or pneumonia?
At FLASS, we must stress that this is just a case-finding approach, an effort to find possible COPD cases, not diagnose or even screen them. Called CAPTURETM, plus PEF, the approach now needs to be validated in a huge study.
Finding COPD cases sooner in their development means you can feel better faster with treatment. Discover more quality of life!
Stalking COPD, The Disease in Hiding
The originators of the study have proposed a far-reaching 5,000 patient study at over 75 different primary care sites. Only then can CAPTURETM plus PEF, really improve COPD diagnosis and impact quality of life for hundreds of patients.
We challenge our readers to practice answering these questions now, because they might soon become required at the office of your primary doctor.
In the absence of this new information form, re-read our check-list of symptoms. Do you think COPD could be stalking you? Check out the Signs of COPD at this online resource for lung disease.
Has this killer disease been hiding in plain sight under your misconception of the meaning of getting older?
Think about it, in reference to yourself or a loved one.