No cure for COPD; treatment available
By Erinn Hutkin,
By clinical definition, COPD — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — is a progressive disease of the lungs that makes it hard to breathe.
Another way of describing COPD, said Dr. Joseph Mizzell, a pulmonolgist at Scripps Health in San Diego, is to imagine inhaling normally and exhaling through a straw.
“Getting it out is the problem,” he said. “It’s where the sensation of shortness of breath comes in.”
The disease is one of the most common lung diseases in adults, he said. It’s marked by difficulty exhaling because of changes in the lungs, shortness of breath, chronic cough and production of large amounts of mucus.
It’s the third leading cause of death in the United States, said Mizzell.
According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s website, COPD is most often diagnosed in middle-aged or older adults. While Mizzell said the disease can come from work-related exposure to things such as diesel fuel, the leading cause “far and away” comes from tobacco smoke. He said about 20 percent of smokers develop COPD.
“Smoking cessation should be the main emphasis of COPD,” said Mizzell.
According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s website, COPD develops slowly. Symptoms tend to get worse over time and can limit a person’s ability to do basic activities, such as walking, cooking or taking care of themselves.
Mizzell said symptoms tend to be similar to asthma, but the difference is that asthma symptoms come and go, while COPD is chronic and ever-present. He said some people with the disease can have “episodic worsenings” that can be life-threatening.
While the disease is chronic and there’s no cure, Mizzell said “people can live quite a long time after diagnosis.”
Treatments can come in the form of oxygen therapy, which increases the amount of oxygen flowing into the lungs and bloodstream, which can help patients with severe COPD breathe better and live longer. In addition, he said there are inhalers that can help manage the disease in those with exacerbated symptoms and shortness of breath.
Some patients also go through pulmonary rehab, which he said gets people into shape in a controlled environment.
“It gives people a chunk of their life back that they may not have,” he said.
In addition, some patients with exacerbated COPD are prescribed oral steroids, but he said only a small number of people can take daily steroids because of the side effects.
When it comes to what Mizzell calls “more exotic treatments” he said in the ’80s and ’90s, some COPD sufferers had surgery to remove the top pieces of their lungs, which are more affected by tobacco smoke.
Removal gives the remaining areas of the lungs more room to expand. He said this was done on only severe COPD cases and only a small fraction of sufferers could benefit.
There are now efforts to replicate the procedure with a less-invasive method of inserting a valve in the lungs that blocks blood to the top portion of the organ. However, he said FDA approval for this is pending and “the data is not strong.”
Still, he said plenty of research is being done into more COPD treatment.
“A lot of research is being done because it’s starting to affect large numbers of people,” he said.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/Jan/14/pulmonary-disease-treatments/
Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:38 pm