A new study, published online in the European Respiratory Journal, suggests that early identification of COPD may help detect lung cancer at an earlier stage.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), COPD is the fourth largest killer in the world, and lung cancer, the seventh. In the last decade, research has found that these two diseases are somehow, genetically linked.
The new study evaluated a large number of research papers from the last 20 years and found that people with COPD are more likely to develop lung cancer when compared to people who smoke, or have a past history of smoking who have normal lung function. It is estimated that approximately 1% of COPD patients develop lung cancer compared to 0.2% of people with normal lung function. This suggests that people with COPD have a 5-fold increased risk for lung cancer. Testing current or former smokers for COPD could help identify COPD earlier, which would alert doctors to also screen for lung cancer.
Lead author of the study, Yasuo Sekine, from the Tokyo Women's Medical University, said:
"Both COPD and lung cancer have high mortality rates and a serious economic impact worldwide. Early detection and intervention for both diseases are critical. The findings from our analysis suggest that early detection of COPD in addition to lung cancer screening for these patients could be an effective detection technique for lung cancer. However, further research is still needed to determine the selection criteria for COPD and lung cancer screening."
What does this mean for you? If you are a current or former smoker and have any of the early symptoms of COPD, talk to your doctor about getting a spirometry test. If a COPD diagnosis is confirmed based on the results, then discuss getting a CT scan for early detection of lung cancer.
Thanks for the information. very helpful.