Individuals who suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are to be screened earlier in a bid to get an earlier diagnosis of lung cancer. According to the latest research published in the online European Respiratory Journal, clinicians attempting to detect chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are able to spot lung cancer earlier.
The news was released on World COPD Day, an awareness raising campaign about the disease which affects individuals around the world and which is on the rise. World Health Organization (WHO) statistics indicate that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer are the fourth and seventh, respectively, leading causes of death in the world today.
The two conditions are related but the precise relationship between the two are not fully understood by physicians. Understanding of the genetic interactions between the two is still in its infancy. The research carried out is based on an investigation into research papers drafted over the last 20 years looking at COPD and lung cancer and the links between them.
The researcher indicates that patients who suffer from COPD stand a greater chance of developing lung cancer, when compared with smokers who enjoy normal lung function. Statistics show that 1% of COPD patients develop lung cancer every year. This compares with just 0.2% of patients who have normal lung function. Therefore the lung cancer risk to COPD sufferers is five times as great.
Additionally, the results demonstrated that test on the lung function of former or current smokers may also help identify COPD at an early stage.
Tokyo Women’s Medical University’s lead investigator, Yasuo Sekine, said: “Both of these conditions have high mortality rates and also an impact on economies worldwide. We already know that early detection of these diseases can be critical but millions of people have COPD undetected.”
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