Epidemiology of COPD

Published on July 31, 2012 Updated on June 27, 2021   30 min

A selection of talks on Clinical Practice

Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
This is Dr. David Mannino, professor at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. Today I will be talking about the epidemiology of COPD.
0:12
These are the topics I'll be reviewing today. I will start out talking about the various definitions of COPD, and how they have applied to both disease severity and progression of disease. I will then discuss various estimates of the prevalence of COPD, and risk factors for COPD. I will spend the last part of the talk talking about both hospitalizations and mortality related to COPD, and how these may be changing in recent years.
0:47
The global initiative on chronic obstructive lung disease (better known as GOLD) has defined COPD in the following way. The features of this definition include chronic airflow limitation, that is associated with a number of pathologic changes in the lung. These will be discussed at length in subsequent talks. In addition, effects occur outside of the lungs, along with important comorbid diseases. This will also be the topic of subsequent talks. Traditionally the features of COPD have included chronic bronchitis, hallmarked by cough and sputum production, and emphysema, which is destruction of the gas-exchanging surfaces of the lungs (although, as I will discuss in subsequent slides, the presence of this has become less important in our current definition of COPD). The changing definition of COPD over the years is noted in this slide.