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. 2018 May;73(5):486-488.
doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2017-210842. Epub 2017 Oct 26.

Associations between emphysema-like lung on CT and incident airflow limitation: a general population-based cohort study

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Associations between emphysema-like lung on CT and incident airflow limitation: a general population-based cohort study

Elizabeth C Oelsner et al. Thorax. 2018 May.

Abstract

Emphysema on CT is associated with accelerated lung function decline in heavy smokers and patients with COPD; however, in the general population, it is not known whether greater emphysema-like lung on CT is associated with incident COPD. We used data from 2045 adult participants without initial prebronchodilator airflow limitation, classified by FEV1/FVC<0.70, in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Emphysema-like lung on baseline cardiac CT, defined as per cent low attenuation areas<-950HU>upper limit of normal, was associated with increased odds of incident airflow limitation at 5-year follow-up on both prebronchodilator (adjusted OR 2.62, 95% CI 1.47 to 4.67) and postbronchodilator (adjusted OR 4.38, 95% CI 1.63 to 11.74) spirometry, independent of smoking history. These results support investigation into whether emphysema-like lung could be informative for COPD risk stratification.

Keywords: COPD epidemiology; emphysema; imaging/CT MRI.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors do not report any competing interests, besides funding from the NIH, with the following exceptions: BMS reports training/salary awards from the Quebec Health Research Fund, and grants from McGill University; EAH is a founder and shareholder of VIDA Diagnostics, a company commercialising lung image analysis software developed, in part, at the University of Iowa; SMK has received non-financial support from the ATS, personal fees from the European Respiratory Journal for serving on an editorial board, and the University of Pennsylvania has received grants from Actelion, grants from United Therapeutics, grants from Gilead, grants from Lung Biotech, and grants from Bayer for CME courses; RGB reports grants from the Alpha-1 Foundation, COPD Foundation, and Foundation for the NIH, personal fees from UpToDate, and travel reimbursement from the COPD Foundation.

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