Most patients with COPD are unaware of their health threats and are not diagnosed: a national-level study using pulmonary function test

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate national-level prevalence of COPD, proportion of patients diagnosed with and without COPD. We performed pulmonary function test (PFT) in 24,454 adults aged > 40 years for 8 years (2010-2017). The annual COPD prevalence increased from 13.1% in 2010 to 14.6% in 2012, followed by 13.3% in 2017. However, patients diagnosed with COPD ranged between 0.5 and 1.0% in the last 8 years, which means that only 5% of all COPD patients were diagnosed with COPD by doctors. We defined potential high-risk individuals as those with a FEV₁/FVC ratio of < 0.70, who have not been diagnosed with COPD and other respiratory diseases tuberculosis, asthma, lung cancer. The proportion of this group was 80.8% in 2010 and 78.1% in 2017. The older age group, women, low-educated group, and current smokers who have been smoking for a long time are more likely to be in the high-risk group having a higher possibility to develop COPD but are not diagnosed with COPD appropriately. Although COPD prevalence was high in the ever, current, and heavy smokers, only the diagnosis rate of COPD in ever smokers was 2.38 times higher than never smokers, indicating that a system is needed to screen and intervention for these groups.

Figure 1

Flow diagram for study subject. COPD chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, KNHANES Korea National Health and Nutrition Health Examination Survey, FEV₁ forced expiratory volume in one second, FVC forced vital capacity.

Figure 2

Proportion of patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and diagnosed with other respiratory-related diseases (tuberculosis, asthma, and lung cancer) diagnosed among COPD prevalence.