THE DIFFERENCES IN PREVALENCE OF CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE (COPD) ACCORDING TO THE SMOKING HABITS.

A major problem with COPD is estimating its real prevalence in the general population, which may considerably change according to the diagnostic tools used: respiratory symptoms reported by the patient, physician's diagnosis or presence of lung function impairments. The prevalence in adult population who suffer from COPD increases proportionally with age. Another considerable epidemio-logical aspect is COPD under diagnosis. Tobacco smoke is without any doubt the main risk factor for COPD development and mortality. Presenting and understanding of the harmful effects of smoking to their health in the population of any age has also been the aim of this investigation. The aim of the investigation was to compare frequency of COPD illnesses in two ambulances of family medicine in two cities and to show the influence of smoking on lung health of smokers in a prospective study. The selection was performed according to the existing disease, and the inquiry was carried out on 43 examinees, patients from the ambulance of family medicine in Gradačac and 12 examinees, patients from the ambulance of family medicine in Srebrenik, of the same age 48-90 years, and both gender, who suffer from COPD. Obtained results were processed statistically and the differences between groups were certified with X2 test and t-test to the level of tasked signification α=0.05. Results: In both ambulances males smoked much more than females, and they have been smoking for a very long time (in average 37.5yrs in Gradačac and 43 yrs in Srebrenik), and average number of cigarettes smoked daily is very high (32.5 in Gradačac and 27.5 in Srebrenik). Therefore, we found significant decline of lung function, especially in group of examinees in the ambulance of FM in Gradačac (FEV1 54.2% and FEV1/FVC 70.4%). COPD is often under diagnosed or misdi-agnosed disease. A high index of suspicion in patient with risk factor, at first smoking habit and age can establish an accurate diagnosis in majority of individuals with this preventable disease. Conclusion: Although we did not find a high number of smokers ( 16.97% smokers in the ambulance of FM in Gradačac and 11.2% smokers in the ambulance of FM in Srebrenik), we found that they were heavy smokers, who had long smoking training period and smoked a very high number of cigarettes per day. Also, we can confirm that the prevalence of COPD is under diagnosed, because we estimated only 2.12% of patients with COPD in ambulance of FM in Gradačac and 0.53% of patients with COPD in ambulance of FM in Srebrenik. Very important fact is that COPD is disease which increased with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]