Search

Aims: To determine the predictability of the MARKO questionnaire and/or its domains, individually or in combination with other markers and characteristics (age, gender, smoking history, lung function, 6-min walk test (6 MWT), exhaled breath temperature (EBT), and hsCRP for the incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in subjects at risk over 2 years follow-up period)., Participants and Methods: Patients, smokers/ex-smokers with >20 pack-years, aged 40-65 years of both sexes were recruited and followed for 2 years. After recruitment and signing the informed consent at the GP, a detailed diagnostic workout was done by the pulmonologist; they completed three self-assessment questionnaires-MARKO, SGRQ and CAT, detailed history and physical, laboratory (CBC, hsCRP), lung function tests with bronchodilator and EBT. At the 2 year follow-up visit they performed: the same three self-assessment questionnaires, history and physical, lung function tests and EBT., Results: A sample of 320 subjects (41.9% male), mean (SD) age 51.9 (7.4) years with 36.4 (17.4) pack-years of smoking was reassessed after 2.1 years. Exploratory factor analysis of MARKO questionnaire isolated three distinct domains (breathlessness and fatigue, "exacerbations", cough and expectorations). We have determined a rate for incident COPD that was 4.911/100 person-years (95% CI [3.436-6.816]). We found out that questions about breathlessness and "exacerbations", and male sex were predictive of incident COPD after two years follow-up (AUC 0.79, 95% CI [0.74-0.84], p < 0.001). When only active smokers were analyzed a change in EBT after a cigarette (ΔEBT) was added to a previous model (AUC 0.83, 95% CI [0.78-0.88], p < 0.001)., Conclusion: Our preliminary data shows that the MARKO questionnaire combined with EBT (change after a cigarette smoke) could potentially serve as early markers of future COPD in smokers., Competing Interests: Plavec Davor is an Academic Editor for PeerJ. Plavec Davor is employed by Prima Nova, a private health institution. The authors declare that they do not have any other competing interests., (© 2023 Vrbica et al.)

Objectives: This study aimed to directly measure pH in the lungs, determine lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), C-reactive protein (CRP), and glucose levels in serum and bronchoalveolar aspirate, and identify bacterial pathogens from bronchoalveolar fluid during acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD)., Methods: We performed an observational, analytical case-control study from February 2015 to March 2017. We included 84 patients with AECOPD and 42 with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). All participants underwent detailed medical anamnesis, a clinical examination, chest radiography, spirometry, an arterial blood gas test, bronchoscopy, bacterial culture, and serum/bronchiolar aspirate laboratory testing., Results: The mean pH of bronchoalveolar fluid was significantly higher in patients with AECOPD than in patients with stable COPD. The mean lung pH value, bronchoalveolar and serum LDH levels, and serum CRP levels in patients with isolated bacteria were higher than those in patients without isolated bacteria in the AECOPD patient group. Lung pH values in patients with AECOPD were significantly correlated with bronchoalveolar LDH and glucose levels., Conclusions: AECOPD is associated with local cell and tissue injury in the lungs, especially in the presence of bacterial pathogens, which is accompanied by a low systemic inflammatory response.

Background: Main risk factor for the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is smoking, although only less than 1/3 of smokers develop clinically manifest COPD. COPD's progressive nature with high disability and mortality makes it plausible to detect it as early as possible thus allowing for an early intervention. The only tool for an early diagnosis that could be used on the global scale is spirometry, even though symptoms and deprivation of health related quality of life (HRQoL) precede relevant spirometric changes. Existing HRQoL questionnaires are too complicated or not developed for an early detection of COPD. The aim of our study was to develop a new simple HRQoL tool that will allow (alone or in combination with other markers) early detection of patients with COPD., Methods: A multicenter prospective cohort study recruiting 500 subjects at risk for COPD (smokers/ex-smokers ≥20 pack-years, 40-65 years, both sexes, with no prior diagnosis of COPD) will be carried out in two phases: (1) cross-sectional - development and validation of a new questionnaire; and (2) prospective - follow-up of a cohort of patients at risk for COPD. Subjects were recruited by 25 GPs and assessed for COPD by dedicated pulmonologists in 7 hospital centers using a predefined protocol: HRQoL, history, physical, blood sampling, exhaled breath temperature (EBT), lung function, 6-min walk test (6MWT). Patients without COPD and those in GOLD stage 1 at initial assessment will be reassessed for disease progression by the same pulmonologist after 2 and 5 years., Discussion: This is one of the first cohort studies attempting to establish the incidence of COPD in the pre-symptomatic stage before significant end organ damage. We intend to assess the validity, predictability and discriminative power ('healthy' smokers vs. pre-symptomatic phase in newly developed COPD) of newly developed HRQoL tool alone or in combination with other markers; EBT, lung function, 6MWT, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics). We expect that the results of this study can improve our understanding of the development of COPD, identify some new underlying pathophysiological pathways, and offer to sensitive smokers/ex-smokers new preventive and early intervention measures thus improving the management of COPD., Trial Registration: Clinicaltrial.gov NCT01550679 retrospectively registered February 28, 2012.

Although only less than one-third of smokers develop COPD, early marker(s) of COPD development are lacking. The aim of this research was to assess the ability of an average equilibrium exhaled breath temperature (EBT) in identifying susceptibility to cigarette smoke so as to predict COPD development in smokers at risk. The study was a part of a multicenter prospective cohort study in current smokers (N = 140, both sexes, 40-65 years, ≥20 pack-years) with no prior diagnosis of COPD. Diagnostic workup includes history, physical, quality of life, hematology and highly sensitive CRP, EBT before and after smoking a cigarette, lung function with bronchodilator test, and 6-minute walk test. Patients without a diagnosis of COPD and in GOLD 1 stage at initial assessment were reassessed after 2 years. COPD was additionally diagnosed based on lower level of normal (LLN) lung function criteria. Utility of EBT for disease progression was analyzed using receiver operator curve (ROC) and logistic regression analyses. Change in EBT after smoking a cigarette at initial visit (ΔEBT) was significantly predictive for disease progression (newly diagnosed COPD; newly diagnosed COPD + severity progression) after 2 years (p < 0.05 for both). ΔEBT had an AUC of 0.859 (p = 0.011) with sensitivity of 66.7% and specificity of 98.1% for newly diagnosed COPD using LLN criteria. We conclude that EBT shows potential for predicting the future development of COPD in current smokers. This was best seen using LLN to diagnose COPD, adding further evidence to question the use of GOLD criteria for diagnosing COPD.

Aim: To develop and do an initial validation of a new simple tool (self-administered questionnaire) that would be sensitive and specific enough to detect early changes in smokers leading to future development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)., Methods: 224 consecutive participants (50.9% women), with mean±standard deviation age of 52.3±6.7 years, 37.5±16.7 pack-years smoking history (85.8% active smokers), and no prior diagnosis of COPD were recruited. The MARKO questionnaire was self-administered twice; at the general practitioner's office and after 2-4 weeks at the tertiary care hospital. Participants were assessed for COPD by a pulmonologist after filling in a quality of life (QoL) questionnaires, history-taking, physical examination, lung function test, 6-minute walk test, and laboratory tests. They were divided into four subgroups: "healthy" smokers, symptomatic smokers, and smokers with mild and moderately severe COPD., Results: Psychometric analyses indicated that the 18-item questionnaire had a very good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.91) and test-retest reliability for a four week period (c=0.89, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85-0.92, Lin's concordance). A significant correlations of MARKO scores were found with two QoL questionnaires; r=0.69 (P<0.001) and r=0.81 (P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.753 (95% CI 0.691-0.808, <0.001), with a sensitivity of 71.83% and specificity of 64.24% to discriminate "healthy" smokers from other subgroups., Conclusion: Based on psychometric analyses and high convergent validity correlation with already validated QoL questionnaires, the newly developed MARKO questionnaire was shown to be a reliable self-administered short health status assessment tool.

Background: COPD-6™ is a lung function testing device for a rapid pre-spirometry testing to screen-out at-risk individuals not having COPD and indicating those at risk. The aim of this study was to validate COPD-6™ lung function testing (index test) in general practice in discriminating patients with COPD out of the population at risk - smokers/ex-smokers with no previous diagnosis of COPD, using measurements at tertiary care as reference standard., Methods: Consecutive 227 subjects (115 women, 185 smokers/42 ex-smokers, ≥20 pack-years) with no previous diagnosis of COPD, aged 52.5 (SD 6.8) years from 26 general practitioners (GPs) were recruited, lung function tested with COPD-6™, referred to the tertiary institution for repeated COPD-6™ testing followed by spirometry with a bronchodilator (salbutamol), examination, and pulmonologist consultation for the diagnosis and severity of COPD., Results: COPD was diagnosed in 43 subjects (18.9 %), with an AUC of 0.827 (95 % CI 0.769-0.875, P < 0.001) for the diagnosis of COPD when lung function was measured using COPD-6™ in GP's office with a specificity of 100 % (95 % CI, 97.95-100 %) but a very low sensitivity of 32.56 % (95 % CI, 20.49-47.48 %). Significant agreement for forced expiratory volume in 1 s measured at GP's office and at lung function lab was found (mean difference 0.01 L, p = 0.667) but not for other measured parameters (p < 0.001 for all)., Conclusions: Our study results point out that active case finding in a population at risk for COPD should be instituted (almost 20 % of undiagnosed COPD). Based on our results lung function testing with COPD-6™ can substitute spirometry testing in cases where it is not readily available to the patient/physician taken into account that the traditional FEV1/FEV6 cutoff value of <0.7 is not the only criterion for diagnosis and/or further referral., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT01550679 Registered 28 September 2014, retrospectively registered.

Aim: To assess the proportion of patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with significant bronchoobstruction who do not have inspiratory flows necessary for the adequate use of dry powder inhaler (DPI) devices Diskus and Turbuhaler., Patients and Methods: multicentre cross-sectional study that included 400 patients with asthma or COPD (with FEV1 < 60%) aged 5-91 years tested during exacerbation or usual control visit. All patients underwent lung function testing and measurement of inspiratory flows using In-check Dial., Results: Significantly lower proportion of patients didn't have inspiratory flows necessary for the regular adequate use of Diskus than for Turbuhaler (21.0% vs 87.0%, chi2 = 350.72, p < 0.0001). In patients tested during exacerbation these proportions were marginally greater. Regression analysis showed a weak association of inspiratory flows measured with different resistance settings with parameters of lung function (best association was seen between resistance setting for Diskus and PEF [%], r2 = 0.104)., Conclusions: Significant proportion of patients with asthma or COPD with significant bronchoobstruction do not exhibit satisfactory inspiratory flows for the use of dry powder inhaler (DPI) devices (Diskus < Turbuhaler). Spirometry is not to be used for selection of the device for drug application and In-check Dial should be used instead.