Int J Family Med Prim Care | Volume 3, Issue 2 | Research Article | Open Access
Dal Negro RW1 * and Turco P2
1 National Center for Pharmacoeconomics and Respiratory Pharmacoepidemiology Studies, Italy 2 Research & Clinical Governance, Italy
*Correspondance to: Dal Negro RW
Fulltext PDFIntroduction: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a progressive respiratory condition characterized by heterogeneous clinical presentations and by chronic cough and dyspnea as the major symptoms. Aim: To correlate the prevalence of chronic cough and dyspnea to corresponding clinical and lung function profiles in COPD patients. Materials and Methods: COPD patients were recruited from twenty-four national sites. Patients were grouped by Chronic Cough (COPD-CC) or Dyspnea (COPD-Dy) as their prevailing symptom. Variables collected were: anagraphics; smoking habit; n. exacerbations in the previous year; alpha1 Anti-Trypsin (α1-AT) levels; complete lung function, and the chest X-ray report, mMRC, CAT, BCS, EQ5d-5L were also used. The association between variables and chronic cough or dyspnea was checked by Chi-square test and multinomial logistic regression. Results: 877 patients were recruited. COPD-CC was the prevailing clinical presentation (55.4%). Lung function proved more preserved in the COPD-CC patients. Smoke; n. exacerbations/year; VR, and BODE index were positively correlated with the COPD-Dy presentation. Lower DLco values were highly probative for the COPD-Dy presentation (p<0.001). The probability to have some extent of emphysema was 3.40 times higher in COPD-Dy patients. Multiparametrical scores also contributed to discriminate COPD-Dy patients. Conclusion: Chronic cough and dyspnea represent the major clinical symptoms claimed by COPD patients. As confirmed by proper lung function indices and multiparamerical scores, these symptoms provide relevant information that can contribute to easily suggest the occurrence of different pathological determinants in COPD in primary care
COPD; Chronic cough; Dyspnea; Emphysema; Lung function
Dal Negro RW, Turco P. Chronic Cough and Dyspnea as Basic Indices for Phenotyping COPD in Primary Care. Int J Fam Med Prim Care. 2022; 3(2): 1061.